Abuja Oyinbo: Why Nigerians Laugh When White People Dance

Editor’s note: One of the videos from the early 2000s that Nigerians thoroughly enjoy is Lagabaja’s Konko Below; especially the part where some ‘oyinbos’ are shown trying to get down to the African beats. The jerky awkward moves often elicit laughter from the average Nigerian viewer. In this article, Naij.com contributor, Clementine Wallop, our Abuja Oyinbo, tries to figure out why anyone would find a sincere attempt at attaining some rhythm, amusing.

If there’s anything in this world that makes Nigerians laugh like white people dancing, I am yet to find it. We are, it seems, hilarious on the dance floor.

“Ahahaha, yes, oyinbo dancing, ahahahaha,” is such a good joke it doesn’t matter how you tell it and it doesn’t need a punchline.

The very concept is enough to set off fits of laughter, cramping stomachs, tears rolling down cheeks, slaps on the back. The idea has been so funny to some friends that they have been rendered insensible, just clutching each other for support at the mention of our dance moves.

I started trying to conduct a little investigation into what exactly it is that’s so hysterical, but it’s hard to get a straight answer when someone has collapsed in giggles.

Here are a few of the answers I have managed to extract from between chuckles:

–“Oh oyinbo, you just have no rhythm at all. You are always off the beat,” a colleague said, giving me a perfect demo of someone stomping and jiggling in the wrong time to her hand claps.

–“You just have no moves. You turn, turn, turn – nothing else,” a friend told me. She stood up and, with purposeful clumsiness, turned (I won’t call it spun) herself around a few times looking gloomy in a way no Nigerian dancer ever does.

–“You jump all the time; you are always jumping jumping. Why?” wondered my home help, giving me a few half heartened jumps to show how silly we look. I don’t remember jumping a lot on dancefloors, but now I think of it, there’s a certain kind of British man who does do this in the absence of anything better.

Lagbaja’s Konko Below: (The ‘oyinbo’ dancing starts from 3:39)

When I am at a party or if I am jubilating, it’s hard not to feel a little shy. British people are naturally extremely self-conscious and it usually takes us a lot of drinks to feel able to break out some moves. This may in fact be the heart of the problem: no good dancer was ever shy and only very few dancers improve with the volume of drink taken.

I look around the dance floor and see kids of four or five with better steps than I’ll ever have. I see very old people tearing it up. I see certainly completely sober people having the wildest times with no help from juice.

Still, I have never been at a party here or at a jubilation of any sort without being welcomed onto the dancefloor. Arms go out and pull me and my arrhythmic, turning, waving form into the circle to do my worst. And when I am dancing, you never laugh at me – maybe you’re just waiting until I go home?

“Your dancing is alright for oyinbo,” I was even told last time I found myself chopping my money at a party.  High praise indeed.

I may be still be the funniest joke in town, but I am a work in progress and you’re helping.

Clementine Wallop is a British writer and researcher. She has been happily living in Abuja since 2014.

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