Beyond just putting a smile on the face of people, skitmaking has become a money making business for many Nigerians to escape from the high rise of unemployment and poverty in the country. With a combination of talent and digital tools, many youths are improvising, making use of what they have.
In a report published by Dataleum – a global talent accelerator – earlier this year, skit-making ranked as the third largest entertainment industry in Nigeria with a net worth of over N50 billion.
One of the country’s top skit makers, Maryam Apaokagi, popularly known as Taaooma explained she only wanted to perfect her cinematography skills when she started making skits but focused on skitmaking when she realized how much of the positive feedback she was getting.
“I wanted to be a cinematographer rather than a content creator initially. The videos I made were to edit and perfect my cinematography skills, but as time went on, I started getting positive feedback from everyone around me, and the reception on social media gave me the green light; so I had to venture into the business of creating more skits.”
Taaooma is not the only one in this. There are several success stories of people who studied different things in the university but now do skitmaking full time. While there are others who didn’t see a breakthrough but skitmaking gave them a chance to a new life. Slowly but steadily, it is becoming an industry that impacts the country’s economy.
To further prove this point, a report published by Jobberman in 2021 stated that the creative industry was employing more than four million people in the country and has the potential to create an additional 2.7 million jobs by 2025.
“The creative sector in Nigeria has significant potential for employment of young people. This potential is evident in the availability of the current formal and informal job opportunities, as well as the growth potential within the industry.”
As Nollywood continues to grow, we continue to witness its impact on the skitmaking industry. Several skit makers have been in movies, and many more with brand endorsements taking in millions yearly from what they do.
Another popular skit maker, Emmanuel Iwueke, popularly known as Craze Clown explains how he feels skitmaking helps ease the rate of unemployment in the country.
“With the current rate of unemployment in the country, skit-making has helped serve as a source of income, with skit makers getting paid by a brand to advertise their product as well as earning from streams.”
Daily, we see the creativity of individuals come to play as they come up with new characters to make their fans laugh. We also see the expansion from just being skitmakers to showing in movies and music videos.
Also, emerging digital technology which supports content creation, delivery, and consumption, has helped Nigeria’s entertainment and creative industry advance quickly. Due to these reasons, experts have named the creative industry as one of the top economic areas for creating jobs, especially for young people in the country.
Talking of young people, there is also the rising trend of young skitmakers in the country. Young as they are, they have been able to build a brand for themselves, leveraging on their popularity to generate revenue.
The likes of Emmanuella, Ikorodu Bois, Kiriku, are some of the young skitmakers making millions off their page, with thousands of social media followers watching their content. These youngsters are still in school but have already created a source of income for themselves through content creation.
The skitmaking industry is gradually getting bigger by the day and there is a lot more potential coming out of it. Daily, we see new talents, contents and creativity in play. Just like every other sector, getting that breakthrough in the skitmaking business requires hard and smart work, creativity, and proper strategy at best.
With many Nigerians having discovered that skitmaking is the new gold mine, the troupe of people into the industry will be something we will start to discuss in the nearest future. But good or bad, we’d be able to tell how well skitmaking helped develop the entertainment industry.
