Nigeria: Unveiling Nigeria's Female Comedians

What a man can do, a woman can do better, goes a popular downtown Nigerian street lingo. This particularly used to be the case when gender-based issues were raised. Gradually, however, the slang began to be applied in virtually all professions, the entertainment sector inclusive.

Until recently, the Nigerian entertainment industry was dominated by the male folks essentially because of the society regarded the womenfolk as weaker sex. The seeming revolution, which saw female comedians getting involved in the entertainment industry, has drastically changed the trend. The revolution actually began with Mandy and Princess leading the pack. Ever since, more female folks have embraced comedy business that used to be an exclusive engagement of the men.

Damilola Adekoya (Princess)
A Creative Arts graduate of University of Lagos, Princess earlier attended Our Lady of Apostles Secondary School, ljebu-Ode. She is said to have been involved in acting since her primary school days

In 2001, she met Kayode Peters and started participating in stage productions with Theatre 15 at the University of Lagos and the MUSON Centre. During this period, she took part in such plays as Armageddon, Black Sheep, Mama, Private Lies, among others. Though she loves comedy, she was on and off until 2004 when she met Wale Adenuga who saw in her a comic character. Prior to that time, she had played many comic roles in some of Kayode Peters' Productions.
Wale Adenuga was actually the first person that insisted she could do stand-up comedy. Some of the roles she played were funny. Later, she started doing stand-up comedy during intermission in stage plays.
In 2004, Tee A asked her to join him in his programme to do a segment and that was just how she came to limelight. Ever since then this comedian born with dreadlocks has been waxing stronger as a result of which her name has become synonymous with female comedy in the country.
She is still an actress and also trail blazer as a stand-up comedian.
Princess, as she is popularly known in showbiz circles, has featured in so many television programmes, including Flat Mates and Super Story. She is into many things.

Mandy Uzonitsha
Mandy claims to be the first female comedian in Nigeria, because she was the first woman to do stand-up comedy, and by that, she has literally become a mother hen to other upcoming female comedians in the country.
Undoubtedly, she is a force to reckon with in Nigerian comedy, as she is one of the female practitioners in this industry who have distinguished themselves with their jokes.
Mandy started out with the Charley Boy Show in 1992 and is still cracking ribs presently with no intention to retire in the nearest future. Her daring moves had seen her plucking many awards and with many events to her name.

Although she sees comedy as an in-born trait, which nobody can study in school, she encourages more ladies to come into the industry, stressing that there are lots of potentials in it.

As she claimed, she did not go out of her way to become a comedian rather comedy chose her. Then she was known as Mandy the comedian, Mandy the actress and Mandy the singer. At a point in time she felt she was doing a lot of things at the same time and so she chose comedy.

She has done a lot of shows and she is the brand face of Fayrous drink. She sees no form of rivalry in the industry though, according to her, people tend to trust men and so their male colleagues get more jobs. "We are all colleagues but people tend to trust men more than women but we (women) are more careful in handling things," she said. Mandy has a daughter (April).

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