PSYCHOANALYSIS AND STAND-UP COMEDY IN NIGERIA: A CRITICAL SURVEY OF THE WORKS OF GANDOKI

The study attempts a psycho-analytical appraisal of the comic art of Gandoki, one of Nigeria’s top flight stand-up comics. Using Gandoki’s jokes as paradigm, the study asserts that such social deviations among Nigerians as street fights, indecent dress codes, drug abuse, uncontrollable temperament, vituperative and cantankerous verbal exchange, indiscipline, immoral dispositions and other awkward social behaviours are manifestations of mental stress, anxieties and despair occasioned by harsh economic realities. The study is literary in methodology and qualitative in approach. The data analysed have been drawn from the life performances of Gandoki in selected comedy concerts as recorded in Video Compact Discs (VCDs) and Digital Video Discs (DVDs). The major finding of the study is that consistent economic depression is largely responsible for the various manifestations of psychological trauma amongst Nigerians. The study also deduces that stand-up comedy goes beyond making people laugh, to also ridicule the social anomalies in human society with the aim of occasioning social change. It is for the foregoing that the study, amongst others, advocates the inclusion and integration of standup comedy into mainstream tertiary education in Nigeria not just as a course but as an area of specialization. The need for the formation of a formidable comedians’ guild in Nigeria is also canvassed