Presently, many adverts for events invite Nigerians to attend to laugh to forget your sorrows. Comedy-shows, church-ministrations, film-premieres and political rallies are not left out in promising a laugh to forget your sorrows. Yet, we did not ask how much dose of laughter we need to forget or eliminate the problems of hunger and social injustice. Nigeria may need to employ more socio-political cum religious comedians, so we can permanently forget majority of the problems in the society.
Laughter, fun-activities, drugs and alcohol closely follow one another in the order of providing blissful pleasure. A drunk person enjoys blissful euphoria where he hardly remembers any of his problems, nor controls his present actions. At that point of drunkenness, he might shoot somebody, forget his problems and carry out many actions. Yet, both the problem that caused the drinking, and the problem caused by drinking are waiting for his recovery from ‘shayo’. Mmiri do n’eju dooro nwa nkita: When you kill someone out of drunkenness, the dead body awaits your recovery from drunkenness.
Laughter is an indispensable life-tonic for improving immunity, human emotional, physical and mental health.[1] Some clinical psychologists and health specialists suggest that laughter is the best medicine, and it serves as an effective anti-depressant.[2] The socio-economic situation in Nigeria presents high doses of anxiety and stress leading to depression. Hence, the need for comedic laughter and religious consolations become necessarily urgent to save Nigerians from depression.
A Chinese proverb says that prevention is better than cure. The process of prevention for a diseases includes the elimination of the remote and immediate causes of the disease. One of the processes for preventing malaria is eliminating mosquitoes in an environment. Otherwise the overall cost of treating malaria could be higher than the cost for fumigating the environment to eliminate mosquitoes.
The problems of depression or anxiety in Nigeria are mainly caused by socio-economic circumstances. The Nigerian society lacks the basic agreement for peaceful collaboration and productivity. The central government and its allies grab and sell all the resources, and finally sprinkle remnant funds for masses to struggle. Since two cannot walk unless they agree, members from over 250 ethnic communities in Nigeria continuously clash in a fight of all against all.
Then, Nigerian politicians and their allies in the religious and entertainment industries tell Nigerians to stop complaining.[3] Instead, Nigerians should change their ways, pray, thank God and laugh to forget your sorrows. Life in itself is filled with its many challenges, but the challenge of choking government policies in Nigeria brings inevitable depression. The policies in the Nigerian-Mineral-and-Mining-Act, and the Land-Use-Act bring more sorrow to Nigerians. That a government official can just decide to demolish people’s homes and markets, seize their lands and resources is more sorrowful.
After the laugh to forget your sorrows at comedy-shows, religious-events or political-rallies, Nigerians return to the same problems of hunger and bondage. No matter the amount of cosmetic laughter provided in Nigeria, the problem of hunger, disease and poverty will continue. The poverty will still fuel crime and insecurity for both rich and poor unless there is an agreement for social justice. Hence, without a basic agreement by ethnic communities to take charge of their resources and citizens, there may be no true change.
[1] http://www.care2.com/greenliving/8-health-benefits-of-laughter.html
[2] http://www.wonderslist.com/10-benefits-of-laughter/
[3] http://pmparrotng.com/2017/08/12/rccgs-pastor-adeboye-to-nigerians-stop-complaining/