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With hundreds of languages spoken within its borders, Nigeria’s linguistic diversity is often posited as a hindrance to national unity. Stand-up comedians render this ‘problem’ as an object of play. Performed largely in Nigerian Pidgin, a.k.a. Naija, comedians’ routines feature frequent codeswitching between Pidgin and English, and occasionally other languages, and poke fun at ethnic, national, racial and gender stereotypes, government officials and economic elites. Comedians’ privileging of Naija/Pidgin, arguably the country’s most widely spoken language, can be seen as contributing to the construction of a unified Nigerian national public. At the same time, the linguistic form and rhetorical content of stand-up comedy performances limit their appeal. Muslim northern Nigerians in particular often find the comedians’ routines difficult to understand or culturally alienating. Large numbers of Nigerian citizens are, and are likely to remain, excluded from the Naija Pidgin nation.

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