If you're tired of Messenger Day and seeing games you'll never play, I come to you with good news: there's a much simpler version of Facebook Messenger that strips out all the nonsense.
That version is called Messenger Lite. And it's not exactly a secret. Over 200 million people are using it around the world. And it's available in Nigeria hence a lot of you might know about its existence.

Messenger Lite is a dramatically simplified version of the app that's“faster, uses less data, and works in all network conditions.” Those are Facebook's own words. Who wouldn't want this? Remember what Messenger was like two or three years ago? This is basically that. There are three tabs: Home, Contacts, and Profile.

Facebook has released Messenger Lite in over 100 countries. But it's not available in the US, UK, Mexico, Canada, and many other places. That's because the app isn't really intended for those markets; it was designed to run on cheap, low-end smartphones and work reliably in regions with iffy data connectivity.

In my relatively brief time using it, I've made some notes.

You lose some arguably good stuff, including...
Voice and video calling
App extensions (Spotify, Lyft, etc.)
GIFs
Android: Chat heads
Android: The ability to use Messenger as your SMS / texting app (on Android)

But you get rid of so much bad, such as...

Messenger Day (a clone of Snapchat stories)
Games
Bots. All the bots.
Aggravating “reminders” to sync your contacts and message people
Lag and stuttering (Messenger Lite is fast)
Extra megabytes (Lite takes up less space on your phone)
Probably a lot of other annoying things that I haven't yet come to appreciate

There are no fancy face filters here; there's not even a built-in camera in this version of Messenger. But you can send people stickers and emoji to your heart's content. And although voice calling is missing, you've got the option to send people recorded, voice memo-style snippets. I do miss Chat Heads — an Android-exclusive feature of Messenger that lets a conversation stay on your screen at all times — but I will gladly sacrifice them for this glorious simplicity.

With all these demerits I think I will stick to the normal Facebook messenger