President Obonjo

He marches into the room in an olive-drab uniform and dark sunglasses, bellowing demands before his boots hit the stage. Within two minutes, President Obonjo has forced a room of timid strangers onto their feet to sing the anthem of his fictional Lafta Republic. He interrogates the front row, appointing a terrified bystander minister of agriculture or bribing a heckler with worthless presidential currency. The bit is loud and domineering, but the real turn happens when the aggression pauses. He drops his chin, holds an awkward silence, and cracks a grin that lets everyone know the whole thing is pantomime.

On the British circuit, he is a cult fixture who packs humid festival basements and pub back rooms. Outside the clubs, his straight-faced mock addresses have occasionally bamboozled social media algorithms and earnest fact-checkers into treating him as a genuine geopolitical threat.

Obonjo is not built for symmetrical joke writing. Longer shows like Goodbye Mr President tend to wobble when he tries to pivot toward earnest personal narrative. The act thrives instead on the friction of the premise, contrasting an all-powerful tyrant with the mundane indignities of driving home on the M25 after an unpaid spot.

Behind the medals is Benjamin Bello, a Nigerian-born comic based in Hertfordshire who started performing in his forties and watched the alter ego take over completely. The satire works because Bello never plays the despot as sinister. He is an eccentric uncle who seized state power by mistake and cannot believe he got away with it.