lexical item
wahala
also: wahalla, wàhálà, no wahala
Trouble, hassle, a problem or the aggravation that comes with one. Very often used in the fixed negative phrase 'no wahala', meaning no problem, or don't worry about it.
Where it comes from
No one person coined this.
It comes from Hausa and Yoruba speakers in Nigeria. The record credits the speech community and the earliest citation that proves it, because Nigerian Pidgin was made by a community over time and not in a moment anyone wrote down.
The OED dates its earliest evidence to the 1960s, and a 1966 Achebe attestation is independently verifiable. That is a date for written English, not for the word: wahala was established in Hausa and Yoruba well before it surfaced in an English-language novel, and it came into those from Arabic. The sources genuinely disagree on the route into Pidgin, and the disagreement is left standing: the OED leads with Yoruba and only hedges Hausa, while Kperogi is firmer that it came through Hausa. It is also not exclusively Nigerian: Wiktionary carries separate Hausa, Yoruba, Krio and Nigerian English entries, so this is a word shared across West Africa rather than a Nigerian possession. No coining event exists to point at.
In use
Recorded means somebody said it and it was written down. Constructed means it was written here to show the shape of the word, and is an illustration rather than evidence.
- constructed
“No wahala, I go come tomorrow.”
No problem, I will come tomorrow.
- constructed
“This wahala don too much.”
This trouble has become too much to bear.
The evidence
Community voices first, then the sources closest to the community. Press and dictionary citations are evidence about a word’s spread, not its origin.
- first usecommunity voice
Chinua Achebe, A Man of the People (Heinemann, 1966): wahala appears in Pidgin dialogue at the minister's party. Verified in the novel's own text, and consistent with the OED's 1966 dating, though which 1966 Achebe work the OED cites is not confirmed
“all the wahala on top”
- community explanationcommunity voice
20 Hausa Words in Everyday Nigerian English, Notes From Atlanta (August 2022)
“it came to Nigerian (Pidgin) English most likely through Hausa”
- dictionary
wahala, Wiktionary (Hausa, Yoruba, Krio, Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin entries)
“from Hausa wàhalā̀, from Arabic wahla”
- dictionary
wahala, n., Oxford English Dictionary
“earliest known use of the noun wahala is in the 1960s”
Something wrong here? Correct it. Corrections from speakers of a variety take precedence over anything recorded here.