‘No gree for anybody’ is a slang that has swept through Nigeria like a bug, biting everyone. It is used across different walks of life, and even security agents employ it occasionally.
Last week, Muyiwa Adejobi, the spokesman for the police, went in front of cameras to declare the phrase, ‘No gree for anybody’ a dangerous statement.
He said it was dangerous for people to use the popular saying as the “intelligence community” found it to not be ordinary.
Adejobi dubbed it the 2024 slogan, and said the police was taking it seriously. This sparked debates over the slang’s use and intention behind its formation.
IBrandTV went digging and found answers to where it came from.
The slang basically means, “Do not allow anyone take advantage of you,” and can be used in a variety of ways, but how did it come about?
Origin
In the early days of 2024, several social media users publicised the slang. Several churches and pastors coined messages around the same message, charging members to be more assertive.
If you guessed it began in the church, it may be a good guess, but an even more accurate assumption would be that a gospel song led to its coinage.
We found that the origin dates back to a Sister Agatha Moses’ song entitled ‘I No Go Gree’. Although this song does not expressly contain the phrase, it gave rise to how the phrase came to be.
IBrandTV found a YouTube video of Moses’ song with a caption that reads, ‘A theme song for 2024.’
On December 1, 2023, Nigerian DJ Mims Agbaye, toyed with the words of this song and made a post on WhatsApp. This post gave birth to what is now the most popular phrase in Nigeria.
However, we found evidence that shows that before December 1, several people had been using the phrase sparingly on Twitter.
Often accompanied by an image of a man holding the shirt of a soldier threateningly, as the soldier reciprocates, or an image of two vehicles obstructing each other’s way. Indeed, the slang has been around.
An April 10, 2023 post on X (formerly Twitter) shows these exact words in a post.
No gree for anybody this week pic.twitter.com/LfYSwE2PLb
— 𝘓𝘖𝘚𝘌𝘠𝘐𝘐💙🦅🫵😹 (@seyimoney001) April 10, 2023
Going by the irrefutable evidence that the slang has been around for longer than December 2023, it is contentious to credit one individual with formulating it.
It has become like many other slangs which become popular thanks to the ingenuity of the Nigerian mind.
I tweeted No Gree for anybody in 2021… I have proof 😂😂