“Johnny Just Come”: Lagos and the newcomer figure in Nigerian screen media

Abstract

The newcomer, or, in Nigerian parlance, the “Johnny Just Come (JJC),” is a recurrent figure in narratives about life in the city. This article investigates this figure as emblematic of the images with and against which the city is defined. The arguments presented contribute to thinking around the non-dichotomous relationship between the rural and the urban. Using examples from Nigerian films and music videos, especially Lagos, by the Nigerian musician Teego, the article analyses the way the JJC works to constitute the category of the urban in Lagos. Understood as an assemblage of attributes and levels of privilege, the JJC troubles the rural-urban binary. The article argues that through the strategic designation of the subjects and objects of laughter, viewers are implicated in the normalisation of urban criminality.