We’ve all had embarrassing moments in our lives. Most of them unplanned moments, where we’ve been careless enough to let our guards down on the wrong occasions and in the wrong places and faced the consequent repercussions of shame.
From casually embarrassing situations like rushing out of the house for an interview and forgetting to zip your fly, only to be told about the situation by the interviewer when you go in, or stepping out in an unkempt manner to quickly run errands for our parents and meeting your crush, to forgetting to mute your mic while sharing a crude joke about your boss with a friend during your office meeting.
I have a few of those moments but in this article, I’ll be sharing epic stories of the most embarrassing moments in the lives of a few Nigerians.
Ore
![Picture showing an African woman in an embarrassing situation.](/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Ore2.jpg)
The most embarrassing moment of my life happened to me in primary school. I was quite young and was still in maybe Primary 1 at the time. It was one of those rare occasions where my mum gave us the freedom to dress ourselves up for school and somehow, I’d managed to put on my elder sister’s panties without letting anyone notice before we left home for school.
During break, I decided to pay her a visit in her class and as soon as I got to the entrance of her classroom, I pulled up my uniform to show her my panties and yelled her name to get her attention, as if on cue, the pant came down all the way to my ankles and all her classmates saw it and started laughing.
I joined them in laughing not knowing what had happened until I looked down and quickly fetched my panties and ran back to my classroom. That drama plagued my childhood for the longest time as my sister’s classmates kept making reference to it each time they saw me.
You would expect them to have forgotten about it until some few years ago. I decided to attend an alumni party and someone brought it up, describing the events as vividly as though it happened yesterday, God abeg, I was so embarrassed and livid at the same time. I managed to get through the event but swore never to attend any other alumni event.
Amos
![Picture showing embarrassing moment of an African man.](/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Amos.jpg)
I’d hurt one of my guys by outsmarting him in getting this babe he had hopes of being with. I thought my guy had forgiven me and was past that situation.
Unknown to me, my guy had gone to my house to inform my parents of my frivolous ways in school, and downloaded my entire routine to my parents. They decided to travel to my school to find out what their precious son has been up to.
When they got to the school, relying on the information my guy had given them, they came to look for me at this spot where big boys and their babes went to chill in the school compound, I was there with this babe I’d just won over, chilling and touching a few things.
I was too engrossed and didn’t see my parents coming. On sighting me there, my parents got out their belts and started to flog me like a thief. I looked up, saw them and knew I was finished.
They didn’t just flog me, they dragged me to the lecture hall, stripped me and flogged the living hell out of me. Omooo, I cried, I crewed, there was no one to rescue me. When they were through, there was no steeze left in me (shakes head in embarrassment). I’m yet to recover from that experience till date.
Efe
![Picture showing woman in embarrassing surprise](/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Efe.jpg)
I don’t even know how it happened. I really liked this x-rated video and I’d just downloaded it on my phone. I told my husband about it and he begged me to send it to him. After teasing him about it for some time, I decided to send it.
In the process of doing so, I had to quickly check on stuff in the kitchen. I left my phone in the living room and somehow my toddler got the phone and forwarded it along with the nasty caption I’d typed for my husband to a couple of people on my contact list, including the church whatsapp group.
Man, I nearly died from the embarrassment! I tried to quickly delete the videos but it was too late and people had downloaded and watched it and they were commenting, chai!
I deleted my whatsapp, it was too late. My pastor’s wife was ringing my line and I couldn’t pick up because I didn’t know what to say.
After blocking my line and avoiding church for months, I finally got the courage to continue living life. But I must say, it was hard…
Gambo
![Picture showing man covering his face in embarrassment](/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/gambo.jpg)
We’ve all seen videos on social media about people who forgot to turn off their videos during a virtual meeting and were going about their business. Well, I had first hand experience and it was outrightly embarrassing.
It was during COVID and we were trying to adjust to the rigors of working remotely and keeping tabs on what everyone was doing. It had been a stressful week and all I wanted was to eat good food and be pampered.
So, I went to see my mum and she’d made very hot amala with goat meat, my favorite food. I cautiously moved away from the camera (since my boss had insisted we should turn) on our cameras) and was just helping myself carelessly until someone asked a question and my name was mentioned.
I quickly pretended as if my network was bad and I couldn’t hear them, forgetting my camera was still on and my beard was covered in soup stains while I was sucking on the bone. My boss was so livid and yelled, “Gambo, are you a dog? We’re not blind, put down the bone!”
Jeez! It was so embarrassing I wanted to enter the ground. Everyone on the team was laughing and I thought I’d never survive the experience but here we are. It’s an inside joke in my office now.
Our mistakes and the feelings we have around them are part of the things that make us human.
Join us on Fusion community and share your own story, we might laugh at you but we won’t drag you.