There is something baffling about the constant need by the people who do these things to measure human happiness. For example, in a 2010 Gallup Poll, Nigerians were described as the happiest people on earth, last week, some five years later, Nigeria was ranked as the third happiest country in Africa. Well, so what? True, the economic rationale behind such research is understandable, but the philosophical basis for this almost literal pursuit of happiness is—and will probably always be—unclear.

If you ask average Nigerians about the validity of these reports and polls, they will probably shrug and sum it up as an example of Fela’s iconic phrase: suffering and smiling. Or, to use the unsympathetic slang given in response to a narration of one’s catalogue of woes: “But, did you die?”

Which is exactly what I thought when…

[Read the rest of the article as originally published in my new weekly column for Sunday Punch]