When former President Muhammadu Buhari passed away, tributes flowed from the political elite. But in Nigeria’s comedy circles, there was an entirely different kind of pause, a quiet recalibration. For nearly a decade, Buhari wasn’t just a president; he was a genre.
From his famously slow speech to his unexplained medical trips abroad, Buhari provided endless content for comedians, skit makers, and social media satirists. To mock Buhari was to mock the system, and yet it was always oddly safe. No matter how tense the country grew, a fake “Bubu” fumbling his speech in a brown kaftan somehow made things feel lighter.
“He was a walking meme,” says popular skit maker @iamDikeh. “With just a voice change and a blank stare, you were instantly in character.”
Buhari’s frequent medical trips to the UK, especially during his early years in office, became both political controversy and comedic gold. At a time when Nigerians queued for hours to get hospital care, the president’s repeated London absences inspired an iconic TikTok sound: “I dey go check-up small, I dey come.”
Mr Macaroni once joked in a viral skit, “Na Buhari get frequent flyer miles pass Wizkid.”
Buhari’s unique speech delivery, slow, halting, with unexpected pauses, was pure fuel for impersonators. Skit creators like Frank Donga and Lasisi Elenu built entire characters around the Buhari-style cadence.
“Buhari didn’t speak, he… strolled,” one X (formerly Twitter) user quipped. “Even his silences had a delay.”
And then there was “Jibril from Sudan.”
What began as an outlandish conspiracy, that Buhari had died in office and been replaced by a Sudanese body double, somehow gained traction. The rumor was ridiculous, but the internet was relentless. Memes, deepfake videos, and skits flooded Instagram and WhatsApp groups.
Comedian Josh2Funny even ran a parody “Jibril auditions” sketch, Nigerians lining up to play the president in disguise.
“It was the one satire that made everyone laugh and cry at the same time,” says cultural analyst Zainab O. “Because the joke wasn’t just about Buhari, it was about how little trust people had in government transparency.”
Now, with Buhari gone, skit makers face a strange void, Bola Tinubu, the current president, certainly isn’t immune to satire, but his comic profile isn’t yet fully carved out. His speech patterns are unpredictable, and his public appearances more controlled. Buhari, for better or worse, was ever-present in the public imagination.
“With Buhari, you didn’t even need a script,” says skit maker BrainJotter. “The character wrote itself.
In the post-Buhari era, many content creators are shifting toward economic satire mocking fuel scarcity, electricity failures, and dollar inflation rather than any one individual.
“We’re in the ‘Trenches Era’ of comedy,” says comedian Gloria Oloruntobi (Maraji). “People want to laugh at their suffering because that’s the only therapy they can afford.”
Buhari may be gone, but his comedic afterlife is just beginning. From deepfake videos to archived skits, his character remains etched in Nigeria’s cultural memory. For a generation raised on Instagram and YouTube, “My fellow Nigerians…” isn’t just a phrase, it’s the opening line of a punchline.
“Who will they satirize now?” Maybe no one will ever fill Buhari’s brown kaftan quite the same. But as long as Nigerians are laughing through pain, power will always be parodied, and every leader, eventually, becomes a skit.
