Skitmakers are doing more than cracking jokes. They are quietly assembling a visual archive of what Nigerians laugh at, fear, and even hope for.
In Nigeria today, skitmakers are not just entertainers. Some of them are becoming the unofficial chroniclers of our lives: our habits, our dreams, our struggles, our attitudes.
Through comedy, they speak the language of the street, the home, and even the frustrated graduate. They provide a mirror to the Nigerian society that is both hilarious and painfully accurate: how we talk, how we survive.
The sheer explosion of these creators on platforms like Instagram and TikTok has established them as the nation’s most effective and accessible cultural archivists, documenting the drama, the gbas gobs and the reality of our daily lives.
But do they really capture history as we know it?
Layi Wasabi
Isaac Olayiwola, better known as Layi Wasabi, comes from Osun State and studied law at Bowen University. He is one of Nigeria’s fastest-rising skitmakers, seeing over three million followers on the internet within three years. Layi’s humour is satirical, and focused on the absurdities of the system. hroughout this time, he created several characters to entertain his audience.
His signature character, “The Law,” a struggling, over-sized-suit wearing lawyer whose office is literally under a tree, is a poignant satire on the crippled legal and economic landscape, showing the struggle of young professionals to ‘make it’ in an environment that is far from enabling. What makes Layi stand out is how he builds fictional everyday characters: the wandering lawyer, Mr Richard (a get-rich-quick schemer), “professors” who grill students, etc.
His skits rarely rely on special effects or huge settings. Layi makes use of simple settings, believable dialogue, and sharp observations. He steers clear of explicit content, maintaining family-friendly scripts, so that they can be shared by many, across class divides. In an interview with Okay Africa, he said he aims for “simple in terms of dialogue … plots easy to understand.”
But why does this matter? Because when Layi shows “The Law” going from case to case, or a student trying to explain a bad JAMB score, you see shared Nigerian anxieties. You see how to deal with authority. You see how to survive the education system. How to hustle basically!
These are small stories but big parts of our lived history. His skits are micro-essays on what Nigerians go through as well as the the coping mechanisms of the under-served middle class.
If future generations ask, “How did people view lawyers, students, hustlers in 2025?” Layi Wasabi’s skits will be part of their evidence.
Gilmore
Muhammed Opeyemi, popularly known as Gilmore, has earned his title as the “King of Relatability” by focusing on the universal experiences of growing up in Nigeria. His rise shows how relatability can be a historian’s tool too. Gilmore’s style is shaped by what people around him create and share, often imploring sarcasm, dark humour, and everyday dialogues.
His skits thrives on collective nostalgia, proving to his millions of viewers that “We all lived the same lives.” Gilmore captures those small, hyper-specific cultural moments which form our shared collective memory. Through humour, his work is unmistakably a digital time capsule of the millennial and Gen Z Nigerian childhood.
In an episode of Pulse On The Record, Gilmore acknowledged how being called “just a skit maker” can feel limiting, but he embraces being versatile.
His latest run, tracking the behaviours and day-in-the-life of present-day careers and personalities, really drives home how tuned in Gilmore is to society. Thousands and thousands of comments on his Instagram posts will agree with us and him.
But what history do we see through Gilmore’s work? The tension between aspiration and limitation. His content whispers how class affects who gets respect, or who gets to chase dreams, or who gets ignored. He gives voice to many who feel boxed in.
Maraji
Gloria Oloruntobi, known as Maraji, started with lip-sync videos, then moved into full role-play skits, switching accents, changing vocal pitches. Maraji is a pioneer and a master of character study. She gained notoriety for playing multiple characters within one video, making versatility her signature.
Maraji skits often explore family, romantic relationships, gender norms, fertility, and motherhood. In that, Maraji does something historians dream of: she captures women’s interior lives in Nigerian social conditions.
History usually ignores the daily life and pressure women felt, like how society controlled their bodies, the pressure to get married and have children, and the difficult compromises they had to make within their own families.
Maraji’s genius lies in her ability to effortlessly switch accents and personas within a single skit, embodying the critical mother, the dramatic aunty, and the different student types.
When she delivers skits on the “Struggles of African Homes,” she’s not just cracking a joke, she’s documenting a shared, multi-ethnic experience of African parenting and the generational divides that define our homes.
Maraji puts those in front, using humour and empathy. Her skits are safe spaces to talk about what many silently endure.
Brain Jotter
Brain Jotter (Chukwuebuka Emmanuel Amuzie) is another superstar skitmaker who has mirrored the profound disillusionment and crippling frustration of the Nigerian youth, particularly through his satirical portrayal of the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.
His character is the definition of a “Frustrated Corper,” who approaches teaching with nonchalance, not zeal. In his classroom, academic theory is replaced by harsh street reality about relationships, societal norms, and the hard-won wisdom that guarantees survival in the Nigerian economy.
He teaches his students that as far as Nigeria is concerned, “Occupation is simply anywhere you find yourself.” To illustrate, he points out that fellow comedian Craze Clown (Emmanuel Ogonna Iwueke), a qualified medical doctor from Ukraine, found greater success in skit-making. This joke perfectly captures the reality of an economy that forces graduates to abandon their degrees to pursue the hustle, ensuring his skits are both hilarious and deeply critical.
Verdict: Are Skitmakers Our Real Culture Historians?
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