Lagos, Nigeria – Sodiq Taiwo appears out of his bed room window in Lagos, watching the youngsters beneath as they play and bicker within the again yard. Considered one of their favorite video games is “police and thief”, the place heroes chase down supposed criminals, mouthing “pew pew” as if to shoot down the wrongdoers.
Taiwo chuckles on the irony whereas ready for Grand Theft Auto V (GTA) On-line – an extension of the sport franchise that enables gamers to roleplay as criminals – to complete putting in on his pc.
Earlier that day, the 29-year-old digital marketer, tech-content creator and gamer was in an Uber on the way in which house when he stumbled upon a TikTok video by Nigerian online game streamer TacticalCeza. With greater than 308,000 followers on TikTok, Ceza has turn out to be one of many foremost faces of GTA roleplay in Nigeria, as tens of 1000’s tune in to observe him navigate the sport.
Utilizing FiveM – a modification for GTA that enables gamers to create or be part of customised multiplayer servers with out altering the sport’s core framework – Ceza playacts as a policeman character within the “Made in Lagos” Roleplay group server.
There, his character, clad in a Kevlar vest emblazoned with “Nigerian Police”, flags down vehicles and interacts with different characters roleplaying as fraudsters or motorists – as they re-enact the real-life encounters many younger individuals face with the police.
“Park your car! … Off your engine!” Ceza’s character instructs a motorist character he pulls over to the aspect of the highway. “Who’s the proprietor of this car?!… What do you do for a residing?!” Ceza calls for, as one other police officer character factors a gun on the motorist now standing beside the automobile. The 2 seize the motorist’s cellphone, after which they place him behind their police automobile and drive to a close-by ATM machine the place they demand he withdraw cash, which in addition they take from him earlier than lastly permitting him to return to his automobile and drive off.
For Taiwo, sitting behind the Uber watching the video, the roleplay hit near house.
Lower than half an hour earlier in the true world, armed Nigerian police had flagged down the cab he was travelling in, in a typical roadblock encounter.
“Park! Park!” one shouted. It was a routine Taiwo knew all too effectively. On earlier stops, officers would ask him for a token “for water” – typically thought of a euphemism for a bribe – whereas different instances they’d delay visitors, in search of one thing incriminating. On today, they requested Taiwo to open his bag and searched the cab earlier than one requested him for some cash for one thing to eat. “Discover me one thing,” the police officer advised Taiwo.
However later, again house at his workstation, Taiwo watches the progress bar fill on his pc display screen, indicating that the GTA sport is put in. He then opens Ceza’s tutorial video on YouTube explaining find out how to run the sport utilizing FiveM and the Made in Lagos server. He follows the directions step-by-step, his curiosity mounting, as he will get nearer to entering into a well-recognized but surreal digital Lagos – crammed with encounters not too dissimilar from what he had simply skilled.
The burden of satire
For the youngsters exterior Taiwo’s home, “play” opens a world sure solely by their creativeness, the sides of their again yard, and the watchful gaze of an older sibling.
Their “police and thief”, or cops and robbers, video games are an harmless pastime. However unbeknownst to them, they mirror a harsher actuality of police harassment in cities throughout Nigeria.
These lived experiences reached a boiling level in 2020 throughout the #EndSARS protests. What started as remoted grievances towards the Particular Anti-Theft Squad’s (SARS) routine profiling and abuse escalated right into a nationwide motion demanding accountability, reform and dignity. Tens of millions took to the streets, forcing the world to reckon with the plight of Nigerian youth.
Nevertheless, 5 years on, little has modified. Greater than 2,000 complaints of police misconduct have been recorded between 2020 and 2024, based on Nigerian media stories citing numerous authorities businesses. Simply final yr, three males fell sufferer to a 1 million naira ($666) shakedown – an incident that solely got here to gentle when the officers have been secretly recorded with a glasses digital camera, the footage later surfacing on X.
For Ceza, his choice to make use of gaming as a storytelling medium stems from eager to share and touch upon these widespread struggles.
“I’ve skilled it firsthand, and so have shut associates I lived with,” he tells Al Jazeera. “That’s a giant a part of why I’m capable of inform these tales with authenticity. The tales I come throughout on-line additionally assist form my perspective.”
Ceza’s TikTok recognition and success lie in his mix of social commentary and gaming. By overlaying Name of Obligation streams with gameplay or reactions to trending subjects, he’s carved out a novel area of interest in Nigeria, fusing popular culture with gaming to amplify his comedic persona.
Nevertheless, his rise to prominence has not been with out controversy.
When he posted a video apologising to the Nigerian president for laughing at his fall throughout the 2023 inauguration, viewers speculated that he had been coerced at gunpoint after noticing what seemed to be the nozzle of a gun within the body. Ceza later clarified it was his microphone, however the incident underscored the precariousness of critiquing authority in Nigeria – even by satire.
“It [using satire] is a extra entertaining technique to shed some gentle concerning the points with the abuse of energy happening within the nation,” Ceza says. “Realizing your rights isn’t sufficient to outlive in Nigeria.”
His work seeks to teach but in addition reassure his viewers, he says, reminding them: “What you’ve skilled, you’re not alone, and that alone offers consolation.”
Although gaming is steadily gaining traction in Nigeria, Ceza stays singular in his strategy, wielding GTA roleplay as each a mirror and a megaphone to underscore the absurdities of on a regular basis injustice.
But, his work will not be with out precedent. Throughout music and movie, Nigerian artists have lengthy wielded their crafts as devices of resistance. Rapper Falz’s Johnny and This Is Nigeria function scathing indictments of police brutality, whereas fellow musician Burna Boy’s Monsters You Made seethes with the righteous fury of the oppressed. Nollywood, too, has performed its half – movies like Oloture and Black November peel again the layers of institutional rot, exposing the state’s complicity within the struggling of its individuals.
Ceza’s work aligns with this custom but in addition factors to its evolution: as storytelling mediums evolve, so do the methods by which Nigerians resist, critique, and push for change.
Gaming as activism
Globally, video video games surpass each movie and music in income and attain. Based on Newzoo’s International Video games Market Report, the gaming trade generated greater than $187bn in 2024, dwarfing the worldwide field workplace and music trade mixed. Whereas Nigeria’s gaming scene remains to be rising, its speedy development – pushed by cellular gaming and an increasing web person base – alerts its growing cultural relevance.
Globally, digital platforms have emerged as instruments for activism, with examples like Roblox internet hosting protests to focus on political causes, akin to pro-Palestine solidarity throughout the Gaza conflict. Professional-democracy activists in Hong Kong and supporters of the Black Lives Matter motion have additionally used digital areas to amplify their messages, turning gameplay right into a power for change.
In Nigeria, this medium displays the fact of many younger individuals, providing an area to confront real-world points like police brutality and systemic profiling.
Joost Vervoort, a scholar specialising in how digital environments like gaming can reshape societal norms, empower communities, and problem entrenched methods, observes, “Video video games, within the case of what Ceza does, create a cultural phenomenon individuals can mirror on. It’s storytelling. It’s enjoying round with communal identities.”
His analysis reveals how seriousness and playfulness can coexist, providing perception into why Nigerians are drawn to creating gentle of significant points, as Ceza does.
“The knowledge of deep playfulness lies in taking issues much less rigidly, with ironic distance and perspective. Play permits us to reject regular interpretations and embrace the absurdity and complexity of life, whereas imagining countless prospects for change,” he tells Al Jazeera.
As Ceza explains, notion is formed by the society it arises in: “When everybody hears a unique story, I consider they’ve the free will to both take it as a joke or a deeper message. And that isn’t for me to impose on them.”
As sport gamers and TikTok viewers see a mirror of their very own actuality in Ceza’s work, Vervoort explains that this familiarity compels gamers to take a position their identification, values and pursuits into the sport, constructing communities that, over time, assist shift societal norms.
Some fear that having humour so entwined with severe points dangers the gravity of the message being misplaced. Nevertheless, Vervoort is assured in its energy to immediate change. “The house is progressively reworking right into a platform for cultural and political critique,” he says, “and although the danger of not being taken severely exists, it’s unlikely to derail the influence.”
As streaming grows and gaming turns into a extra highly effective medium for activism, Ceza sees its potential to succeed in international audiences and produce new visibility to Nigerian points. “It’s going to vary the world and put Nigerians on the map,” he says. “It’s a brand new area, and I’m glad it’s rising.”
For Taiwo, this rising energy of gaming turns into tangible as he dons the position of a fraudster in GTA, and shortly finds himself in a digital encounter that mirrors the harassment he faces in actual life.
On-screen, Ceza, in character as a police officer, calls for that Taiwo “drop one thing for the boys” or threat being taken to the station.
Regardless of what number of instances Taiwo tries to flee, the sport’s guidelines – just like the system he lives in – stay unchallenged, its energy unyielding.
But for him, the sport is each cathartic and communal – an area the place he can course of his frustrations with out real-world penalties whereas connecting with others who perceive the fact.
“It’s bizarre,” he admits. “You’d suppose I’d need to escape it, however enjoying it like this makes it really feel much less maddening – not less than right here, I do know it’s not actual. And possibly that’s the purpose. All of us get to giggle about one thing that isn’t humorous, as a result of what else can we do?”
