The first day in the fourth month of every year appears to be a day that every individual regardless of age and social class looks forward to.

A day in which everybody tends to flaunt their comical prowess/muscle at the expense of either saddening or making people happy. However, most people are oblivious of the secret behind the popular “April Fool’s day”. Is it a day designed for the “fools’ to display their folly? Or exposing the foolishness of the fools?

Ironically, this date has no official backing as either a festive period or a national holiday, in the Gregorian calendar. Yet it has successfully fixed itself in the subconscious of most people. A section of people actually describe it as the birthday of fools, due to its loose and uncontrolled use, especially among the youths, as they look forward to this day to prank people.

The origin of April Fools’ Day are uncertain, but one theory states that it began in 1582, when France adopted the Gregorian calendar. Before this time, New Year’s Day fell on March 25 rather than January 1. Those who continued to celebrate the old New Year at the beginning of April were called “fools” by their early adopting contemporaries. Even before this transition, the New Year had long been associated with the term “fool.”

In medieval France, the Feast of Fools fell on January 1. At this popular festival, hijinks abounded: Christian ritual was burlesque-ly imitated, a fake pope was elected, and high and low officials swapped jobs for a day. Feast of Fools was likely modeled after the similarly themed pagan festival Saturnalia.

As this French tradition died out during the 16th century, a new one sprung up in the form of April Fools’ Day, or All Fools’ Day. In France, the fooled party is called the poisson d’avril, which literally means “April fish.” The customary prank involves pinning a paper fish, also called the poisson d’avril, to to a friend’s back.

This is not the only April Fools’ custom involving paper and backs. In Scotland, April Fools’ Day is called Gowkie Day—gowk, another name for the cuckoo, which is a common symbol of the fool. The pranks continued into April 2, Taily Day, when friends traditionally attach a “kick me” sign to their friends’ backs. Other countries have their own customs: Brazil celebrates April 1 as Dia da Mentira, or “Lie Day,” in which people try to fool their loved ones for comedic effect.

Though not directly related to April Fools’ celebrations, in northern India people throw colored water and powder on others as part of the Hindu festival of Holi, which generally falls in February or March. One Holi tradition is strikingly similar to the now defunct Feast of Fools; for one day people playfully trade caste, status, gender, and age roles.

In modern times, especially in Nigeria, people have gone to great lengths to create elaborate April Fools’ Day pranks. Newspapers, radio and TV stations and Web sites have participated in the April 1 tradition of reporting outrageous fictional claims that have fooled their audiences.

Nigeria has not been left out in this “World Day of Pranks”, despite the fact that it can be described as an alien culture. Different instances of individuals pranking each other has been experienced, even though most of them have been of negative consequences at the end.

It is safe to say then that with the current economic clime in the country, an ‘April fools’ prank would really go down well with Nigerians. A smile or laughter would do a lot of good at this particular period, even if it’s a temporary one.

History of April fool’s Day culled from blog.dictionary.com

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Joshua Akintayo writes from Ibadan and can be reached on Twitter via @d_special_josh