In March 2025, renowned travel blogger, Alma Asinobi set out to break the Guinness World Record for the fastest journey across all seven continents; she believed that her preparation, determination, and ambition would help her break the record, or at the very least bring her within touching distance of it. Sadly, her Nigerian passport became the bottleneck in the attempt. Visa restrictions, and a boarding denial during her proposed flight to Perth, Australia, delayed her progress and eventually thwarted her attempt, though she completed the journey. The frustrations Asinobi experienced were the consequences of the burden of a national image weighed down by years of damaging stereotypes and prejudices that continue to shadow Nigerians abroad.
A couple of weeks ago, a Trevor Noah clip lasting two minutes went viral. In the clip, Noah was talking about Uber’s premium airport bonus scheme and how it ended when riders began to exploit loopholes in the scheme for personal gain. In this conversation Noah cited Nigeria as one of the countries that contributed to the end of this scheme. He made an elaborate joke about Nigerians teaching Uber a lesson, inherently leaning into the ‘Nigerian scammer’ stereotype and portrayed Nigeria as the ‘head office’ of ‘scammers’. Although this podcast was released in June 2025, certain things must be said: for the truth, and our collective dignity — and our posterity’s.
The problem with Noah’s “joke” is not the fact that he attempts to call the highlighted wrongdoings into question but the stereotypical leap it makes from a subset of opportunistic Nigerian Uber drivers to an entire nation. From some “Uber drivers,” he went on insinuating, with his now-hackneyed parody of a Nigerian accent, that Nigerians are scammers. Across talk shows, podcasts, social media, stand-up stages, and other derelict media platforms, Nigerians and Nigeria have been reduced to a caricature of dishonesty and criminal ingenuity by foreigners and, sadly, Nigerians themselves, who have been pioneers of this sour practice.
In a couple of editions of his stand-up comedy tour, Metamorphosis, Basketmouth leaned into the infamous “Nigerian Prince” scam stereotype. Addressing a predominantly white audience, he joked that they had probably received an email from him before, signed simply, “Prince.” Just recently British-Nigerian actor and producer, David Oyelowo, appeared as a guest on the One54 Africa Podcast. During the course of the session, Oyelowo was asked to do a mimesis of different accents, and the first was that of a “Nigerian father.” Unsurprisingly, Oyelowo assumed character with a boisterous and exaggerated manner of speech as the archetypal Nigerian accent. He went on to add that the Southern United States was, in essence, a “Nigerian accent” altered by slavery and subjugation. The implication of his remarks was that, absent these historical transformations, the Nigerian accent is somewhat crude. It is the same manner in which Nigerian American actress and comedienne, Yvonne Orji has repeatedly parodied Nigerians before international audiences. The Nigerian, in their presentations, is loud, uncultured and hyper-aggressive. The bulk of David Oyelowo‘s remarks, including the caricatures he made of his mother, and many of Yvonne Orji’s comedies have only served to reinforce the crude stereotypes that continue to distort global perceptions of Nigerians.
It has become increasingly difficult to resist these stereotypes because they have been perpetuated for so long and by so many prominent voices that it is the only lens many now view the country through, ignoring the socio-cultural nuances that run through Nigeria. To attempt to even “do a Nigerian accent” is very antithetical to the Nigerian social construct. Nigeria is not a monolith. It is a complex amalgam of over 200 ethnic groups who all speak and do things differently. In fact, even among the three dominant ethnic groups, no two tribes speak the same way. There is nothing like the Nigerian accent except for Hollywood’s creation which now exists in the minds of racists, xenophobes, the uninformed, and those whose understanding of Nigeria remains limited.
One of the issues that make these caricatures even more unfortunate is that those who perpetuate them are seldom the ones who bear their full consequences. Nigerians who have dual citizenship and more access can easily hide behind the protection and privilege of another nationality. Unfortunately, the ordinary Nigerian has no such luxury.
It is not wrong to say Trevor Noah’s joke is the product of a societal inability of Nigerians to draw a line between humour and harmful stereotypes. Even worse, many are not socially intelligent enough to know when a joke crosses into the territory of harmful narratives. And painfully, they don’t know when to stop. Everything is fodder for a joke, Rape? Murder? Tribalism Crimes? Misogyny? Queer lives and culture? Everything passes. Even amid the ongoing violence inflicted by terrorists and kidnappers, amid the heightened fear for lives and safety, Nigerians still have found ways to reduce all to jokes.
If you scroll through tweets from Nigerians in the past few weeks, you are more likely than not to see jokes and ‘memes’ about befriending Fulani men, learning their language to curry favour with kidnappers, or telling other Nigerians who wish to embark on long road trips to set aside money for ransom Even more harrowing is Nigerians flocking the comment section of TikTok posts released by terrorist-kidnappers to engage, troll or even beg for money.
You see, with distasteful conduct of this kind comes the depletion of shock. The jokes about terrorism or kidnapping, even joking with the perpetrators themselves, show that we are grossly desensitised to all these issues; fraud, corruption, rape, misogyny. Our moral senses have wizened. We make a mockery of ourselves from the very point of view that diminishes us, and bask in that cesspool.
In fact, it is the frequency with which Nigerians make these sorts of jokes about themselves that has emboldened foreign comedians to make similar jokes with remarkable flippancy. Curiously, this is not Trevor Noah’s first rodeo. In a popular stand-up crowd-work routine — which he later published under the caption ‘When I said why are you late? You should have said he’s Nigerian’ — Noah paused his show to mock a late-arriving audience member named Atizi. The moment the guest revealed his nationality in response to Noah’s inquiry, Noah stopped the show to declare that being Nigerian was an automatic explanation for tardiness, joking that arriving within the first hour meant the guest was practically early.
Noah’s jokes are even more troubling given the fraught history that has marked the relations between Nigerians and South Africans. For so long now, Nigerians, like many other Africans living in South Africa have been victims of xenophobic violence. It’s hard to give a singular reason for this, but listening to South Africans, one is accosted by a familiar echo; many anti-Nigerian xenophobes in South Africa remain trapped in the belief that Nigerians are inherently fraudulent or otherwise socially undesirable. These beliefs, in consonance with others, prompt the cruel violence South African xenophobes mete out to Nigerians. For Noah, as a celebrity with a large platform, holding and even putting out such stereotypical statements at this time, is to fan the embers of xenophobic strife.
Perhaps Nigerians are unaware or are indifferent to the impact of the psychological consequences of such jokes. One of the defences often offered is that Nigerians have “thick skin.” That we can make fun of ourselves, however horrible and socially flawed the situation is, we are the funniest people on earth; we have the fortitude to take such jokes from others. But this is a treacherous position. There is nothing admirable about applauding narratives that diminish you.
As these stereotypes persist, Nigerians globally are forced to live with the consequences of the social image created by these prejudices. They live under the crushing weight of biases and in the shadow of these stereotypes. They are, all too often, judged by them before they are judged by their character. Ultimately, for these Nigerians in diaspora, the end point is that they are denied the basic dignity of being judged as modest or normal individuals. They must prove that they are not what the stereotypes say they are before they are accorded the slightest gesture of dignity.
Across the world, the Nigerian passport, which ranks 89th on the Henley Passport Index Ranking, is viewed with contemptuous suspicion. The holder is subjected to knife-point scrutiny that is peculiar to Nigerians alone. Before they are trusted, they must prove their legitimacy and perform ‘uprightness’ under unceasing scrutiny.
The fact that a subset of Nigerians engage in these acts does not make them representative of Nigeria or Nigerians as a whole. Stereotypes derive force from falsely elevating a trait into a defining characteristic of an entire people. Every nation on earth could be reduced to its worst elements through stereotypes. Speaking of the Uber scam, Nigerians are not the only demographic to have perpetrated such a scam on Uber. Chinese drivers were also up to similar mischief in 2016, the popular ‘Ghost Driver Scam.’ Chinese (Uber) drivers would put up horrifying profile pictures, which scared customers into cancelling rides after initially booking. In line with the scheme at the time, the drivers would then get paid a ‘cancellation fee.’ They repeated this process daily until it gained public notoriety, and Uber had to introduce new policies to block the loophole. Yet few people, if any, would leap from the actions of those drivers to conclude that fraud is an inherently Chinese trait.
Hard as we may try, it is impossible to overlook the fact that, as much as this problem reflects the failures of Nigerians over the years, it is also a failure of governance. The responsibility for managing Nigeria’s image rests largely with the government. In fact, for the most part, the quality of a country’s national and international image is an offshoot of the quality of governance. Things like the economic strength of the country, the efficacy of its institutions, administrative policies and the premium that a government places on the welfare of its citizens matter in the way a nation is perceived abroad.
Early into the tenure of the then-President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, it was administratively agreed that Nigeria needed to revamp its image at home and abroad. Thus began the launch of the “Nigeria: Good People, Great Nation” campaign, flagged by the late Prof. Dora Akunyili, who was the Minister for Information and Communications. The campaign aimed to rebuild the country’s international image by countering negative stereotypes associated with fraud and corruption.
Reuters captured the rationale behind the campaign in a 2009 report when it observed that Nigeria’s international reputation had become closely associated with corruption, fraud, and organised criminality. The report noted that “Nigeria is hoping a new patriotic slogan emblazoned on T-shirts and baseball caps can restore self-confidence and overturn its battered reputation. Under the slogan “Nigeria: Good People, Great Nation,” Nigeria hopes to eschew that image and “entrench a culture of moral re-armament,” President Umaru Yar’Adua said in a speech. Earlier in 2005, there was also the Heart of Africa campaign campaign of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration which was towards rebuilding Nigeria’s global reputation.
To be fair, there have been genuine efforts to improve Nigeria’s global standing. Reforms such as that of Dora Akunyili against counterfeit drugs at the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) helped restore confidence in Nigerian institutions. Nigeria’s successful containment of Ebola in 2014 equally projected an image of competence and administrative capacity.
At this juncture of our national journey — amid the persistence of stereotypical portrayals and the undeniable fact that the actions of some Nigerians have attracted global condemnation — we need a similar, albeit more deliberate and sustained, campaign for the restoration of our collective dignity in the eyes of the world.
The Nigeria that stereotypes ignore is the same Nigeria that built Africa’s largest film industry, gave the world Afrobeats, produced globally competitive technology firms, and continues to supply universities around the world with talented students. Nigerians have made significant leaps and excellent strides across different global endeavours.
Nigeria’s entertainment industry is indisputably the largest and most influential creative powerhouse on the African continent. Nigeria’s Nollywood is only second to India’s Bollywood in terms of output per year. Similarly, Nigeria’s music industry — and its jewel, Afrobeats — is not only Nigeria’s but Africa’s biggest cultural and commercial exports.
In 2025, Lagos was named the world’s fastest growing tech city, over major international technology hubs including Istanbul, Mumbai, Pune, São Paulo, and Belo Horizonte. Over the last couple of years, Nigeria has generated no less than five tech unicorns (startups valued at over $1 billion): Interswitch, Flutterwave, Jumia, OPay, and Moniepoint. According to the UNESCO Higher Education Global Trends Report, Nigeria is officially the third-largest source of international students in the world. Clearly, Nigeria is far more than its few deviants. The vast majority of Nigerians are law-abiding people striving for education, employment, enterprise, and dignified lives. If Nigeria must be known for anything at all, it must be known for these amazing feats.
None of this is to suggest that Nigerians should ignore wrongdoing within the society. Social vices exist and must be confronted with rigour. However, there is a vast difference between acknowledging social problems and branding them as the national trait of an entire people. Nigerians must learn to curate the image they project to the world. Every nation is more than its worst elements.
Merely “acting better” would not wash away the stereotypes or their impact. Good behaviour would not abrogate what has been ingrained systematically. The politics of stereotyping is that it does not operate on evidence alone, but on exaggeration and selective perception so that only the negative is endlessly reaffirmed. The burden of these stereotypes is borne daily by Nigerians — Nigerians seeking visas, employment, education and opportunities at home and abroad. We already face enough challenges without the additional burden of stereotypes. Thus, our collective efforts must therefore converge towards projecting a truer and more dignified image of Nigeria to the world.
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