About Nigerians Ruin Everything

Nigerians Ruin Everything is an encyclopedia of contemporary Nigerian popular culture and public life. It documents what this country takes up and what happens to it afterwards, from POS terminals and betting shops to aso ebi, viewing centres and the national service year.

Most of what is recorded here begins with something done well. An agent banking network reached people the banks had ignored for decades. A chef cooked for four straight days and made the whole country proud. Comedians built an industry out of thirty-second videos. Nigerians rarely leave a thing as they found it, and the rebuilding is usually the most interesting part of the story.

The ruin in the name is rarely malicious. It is what happens when talent, hunger and millions of people share one economy and reach the same opportunity together. Every entry tries to hold both halves of that, the ingenuity and the cost.

Entries carry sources, and we say where a claim is still being checked. Published entries are never finished, since facts that move are tracked and revisited on a schedule. Public editing is planned. Until then, suggestions and corrections reach the editors through the suggestion page.