Akpos

What Brought You Here?

~ livelytwist ~ 38 Comments

what brought you here

The WordPress Stats page is an invaluable tool for bloggers who want to track growth and progress of their blogs. Bloggers receive a summary of blog views by country, top posts and pages viewed, referrers, which are clicks from other sites that link to theirs, and search engine terms, among others.

So far, my biggest referrer is Facebook followed by search engine terms. Search engine terms are words or phrases that people searching the internet use to land on your blog. That search engines drive substantial traffic to my blog is a pleasant surprise because I don’t have an SEO strategy neither do I optimise my content for search engines. It would be too stifling. I would spend too many hours agonising over words. Of course I agonise over words so that what you read flows as effortlessly as rivers over boulders.

The most popular search term that brings people to my blog? Akpos, all things Akpos. Akpos is a fictitious character around whom many Nigerian jokes revolve. I wrote Open Letter to Akpos, a few months ago because I grew weary of multiple BlackBerry Messenger broadcasts of Akpos jokes. Little did I realise that my mini-protest would lift my blog to greater prominence on search engine radars.

Like water on a day when the sun’s heat can fry eggs on car bonnets, Akpos is the antidote to the hassles of Naija life. Unconvinced? Below are a few search terms that brought people to my blog.

Search Engine Terms                                     My Take

Long list of jokes about akpos                     – so you’re currently unemployed?

Akpos meaning?                                            – when you find out let me know

Sweet akpos jokes                                        – are there bitter ones?

Akpos I have a dream                                   – so did Martin Luther King… and                                                                                       Obama had the audacity to change

Akpos bbm pin only                                      – na becos of una I bin write Akpos                                                                                     letter

Akpos jokes of the day                                 – copycat! nor be so Basketmouth                                                                                      hammer; write your own jokes!

Akpos goodmorning jokes                           – for real? wouldn’t you rather have                                                                                     coffee?  

Akpos funny stories                                    – you nor enter molue this morning?

Googleakposjokes                                         – amebo, go find work                     

Best of Akpos at the top                              – please see “my Oga at the top”

Akpos funny love letters                              – run Ekaette, run!

Need story of Akpos                                     – ehnn, for what?

Naija loaded akpos comedy                         – there in four words, the problem with Nigeria!

Since I’ve written about life in Nigeria, I see why search engines referred these searches to my blog.

Search Engine Terms                                     My Take

the beginning of Naigeria                             – this is deep, really deep @Naigeria

God created Nigeria, discuss                       – required essay for secondary                                                                                               school leavers    

I am so glad to know you grew up in                                                                                                     Nigeria. I am from Nigeria                           – nice to meet you too

God of Nigerians                                               – god of corruption, tribalism &                                                                                               comedy

returning to live in Nigeria                           – abeg shine ya eye well well!

Exchange rate Nigeria baits to uk pound   – say what?

Is it legal to urinate in public in Nigeria?   – oyibo, is this your first visit to                                                                                             Nigeria?

I want to wash naija film                              – yes o! wash it clean of the ten-                                                                                           minute credit roll at the start of                                                                                        the movie!

Night+with+naija+full+movies                    – and what a night it shall be!

Don’t ask to touch my earrings                   – okay now! sme sme, I won’t

funny naija post to make my room lively   – sms AkposJokes N10/sms

Lively things to do with my blackberry      – hmmm….

Business woman rides on man                    – nothing and I mean nothing I’ve                                                                                         written on this blog should make                                                                                       anyone land here using this                                                                                               search term! I’m suing Google!

The Body Magic is the post with the highest views on my blog. Perhaps because I expose my insecurities about my weight? Go figure! Not surprisingly, people land on my blog when searching for:

Girl magic weight gain butt                          – need I say more?

Body magic not tight                                   – check the label; made in China?

Body magic won’t fit over hips                   – sis, I feel you

Body magic money                                       – yes, you can make money selling                                                                                     body magic                                                                                                                              #womenarevaincreatures

The body is magic                                     – *wink wink*

Magic in my body                                     – it’s called fat

Where can body magic bra be found                                                                                  in Nigeria                                                                  – send me your BB pin

 

So what brought you here? Search engine? Facebook? Twitter or WordPress Reader? And, what search engine terms drive traffic to your blog? Tell, o tell!

© Timi Yeseibo 2013

Image design: © Timi Yeseibo 2013

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Open Letter to Akpos

~ livelytwist ~ 29 Comments

Akpos does it again

Dear Akpos,

You do not know me. I am a Nigerian living in the diaspora. I know you unlike my friend who continues to speak funéh after we have left the office. Even Nigerians in Antarctica have heard of you, so great is your renown like Britain’s legendary Mr. Bean. As you yab Nigerians living abroad temper your jokes with mercy because after six months in oyinbo land, we forget that we went to Burukutu Primary School and Agbaridion Secondary School—the winter makes us talk through our noses and freezes brain function.

Since 2012 when I started reading your jokes on BBM and Facebook and Twitter, I have become more convinced that no condition is permanent. The way that you have metamorphosed and become as entrenched in our national consciousness as surely as Nollywood is synonymous to Nigeria is “amazing”. As you increase, may all those elements that want to take us down as a nation decrease!

Talking about BlackBerry, every day, I receive several Akpos jokes on BBM. The coloured text informs me that it is a yet another viral broadcast message. I know that a response beyond LOL is oversabi; however, I cannot restrain myself. I punch my screen to reply and let the sender know that I was the one who sent him the joke first; after all, I am not a goat regurgitating cud!

Akpos, I take God beg you, stop “doing it again and again” because:

One Akpos a day keeps the doctor away

Two Akpos a day chases the blues away

Three Akpos a day causes temporary amnesia

Four Akpos a day is like mosquito bite, sweet to scratch until you bleed

Five Akpos a day is like eating dodo every day; e no go tey before you shout, “Ekaette, na only plantain dey house?”

In spite of this, I want to thank you for the great work you are doing in Nigeria. These days, it seems as if you are the only one working hard to make us forget our problems. Can you imagine that Nigeria was ranked 20th saddest country in the world on the 2013 Legatum Prosperity Index? Dem dey craze? Even if oil reserves finish, we go laugh. Make dem flare gas troway, we go still laugh. Akpos, don’t mind them jare. If they had met you, we would not have had such a low ranking.

I still do not know who you are Akpos. Everywhere I turn, I see another Akpos, so tey I have headache that only Paracetamol from India can cure. On Facebook, I found: Original Akpos, Akpos The Comedian, Akpos, Akpos (The Comedian), and Akpos Jokes. Space will not allow me list the number of Akposes I found on Twitter and the spin-offs from your vast business empire: Akpos apps for BlackBerry, Akpos android apps on Google Play, Akpos jokes from the Ovi store, and so on.

This proliferation of your brand reminds me of when my mother started Pure Water business. Before we could finish tying all the cellophane bags of our Pure Water, three of our neighbours had sunk their own boreholes and started calling out on the street, “Buy Pure Water, original Pure Water!” Akpos, your enemies shall never succeed! We are counting the days till you go hammer and your Hummer go land.

I will stop here before your eye begin close like newborn pickin. By now you for don release another five hundred jokes.

BTBY               (be the best you)

LLNP               (long life & prosperity)

OHGSL            (Our Hummer go soon land)

BNFKU           (Boko Haram no fit kidnap us)

PIND               (peace in Niger Delta)

PFE                  (pray for EFCC)

LKH                 (love, kisses & hugs)

TGBTG,          (to God be the glory)

Timi

So what do you think? Does Akpos symbolise something deeper about our national psyche—perhaps a variant of the freedom songs sung by oppressed people through the centuries? Or is Akpos a platform to show that Naija’s got talent, comic relief, pure and simple?

©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Image Credits:

Cartoon by Mike Asuquo: http://asukwo.blogspot.com

Design: ©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Timi Yeseibo and livelytwist.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.