Of beer, Buka, and the business of staying sane, by Folorunso Adisa

The Nigerian spirit is a curious thing. Bent, but never broken. Bruised by inflation, battered by fuel prices, betrayed by the legacy of bad governance, yet somehow, it dances. It finds rhythm in chaos, laughter in lack, and suya spice in suffering.

I landed here just last week, bracing myself for the full weight of the hardship I’d been reading about from afar. The headlines screamed of hunger. Conversations were heavy with complaint. But then I walked into a relaxation joint, one of those open-air cool spots where fans hum like lullabies and grills sizzle like jazz. It was full. Bursting at the seams. Men in Ankara. Women in wigs. Bottles clinking. Meat disappearing. Laughter slicing through the night like a machete through cassava. This was no anomaly. It was a pattern. A rhythm. A ritual.

Every spot I’ve visited, city or village, weekday or weekend, tells the same story. Packed. Not a seat to spare. And these aren’t foreign returnees flaunting foreign currency. These are locals. Your mechanic. Your teacher. Your civil servant. Your okada rider. Your dropout turned dreamer. All eating pepper soup like it’s heritage. All raising bottles like it’s salvation.

You could call it madness. Or you could call it what it truly is: survival. Here, where tomorrow flickers like a candle in the wind, where salaries vanish before they land, and where dreams are often postponed into the grave, people grab at joy like it is oxygen. They do not merely relax. They escape. They step into small kingdoms of forgetfulness, where stew is rich, pockets open, and reality is suspended, if only for a few fleeting hours.

And therein lies the fire-wrapped truth:
The fun industry in Nigeria is not just booming. It is rebellion. It is relief. It is big business. Forget the banks. Forget tech, unless your pocket is deep and your patience deeper. If you seek a venture that defies recession, dances through despair, and laughs in the face of IMF figures, consider investing in joy. In laughter. In peppered goat meat. In the smell of burning charcoal and the gospel choir of Friday night music.

Because what many don’t grasp is this: even in hardship, people do not stop living. They double down on being alive. Fun, here, is not frivolity. It is function. It is how we bear the unbearable.
Any entrepreneur wise enough to meet that need, with clean space, cold drinks, warm meat, and reliable sound, will not be left empty-handed.

Let the analysts quote poverty rates. Let the doomsayers hold up gloomy graphs. I have seen the gospel at the altar of the bar. I have tasted communion in a bottle of stout. I have danced to the psalms of DJs who understand pain and pleasure alike.

Some might say Nigeria is bleeding. But she still boogies. And so, to those with a little capital and a lot of courage, the streets are calling. The people are waiting. Build them a place to breathe, and they will come, cash in hand, laughter in throat, and pain parked at the gate.

Because here, hardship is constant. But so is hunger. Not just for food, but for feeling. For fire. For the fleeting joy of now.