Veteran comedian, Atunyota Akpobome, popularly known as Ali Baba, has recounted how former president, Olusegun Obasanjo referred to him as a thief in the past.
The comedian stated this on Saturday during Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise.
According to Ali Baba, his joke on ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s supposed frugality remained evergreen.
Obasanjo was Nigeria’s democratically elected President from May 1999 to May 2007.
He was Nigeria’s military Head of State between February 1976 and October 1979.Reminiscing about his time with Obasanjo as President, Ali Baba stated that the former nation’s leader was shocked when he discovered the amount he charges for his services.
According to him, “My most memorable joke would be the one with Obasanjo, that he himself tells; in fact, he said I should expunge it from my book, he wrote the foreword for the book.
“It was the fact that people were saying that he (Obasanjo) was very stingy and he didn’t know that I was making as much money that I was making until the day he stumbled on Audu Ogbeh and Doyin Okupe.
“They were planning an event and he (Obasanjo) stumbled on (the budget) and he said, “Ali Baba, one million (naira) why? That’s what he’s been charging since 1999?”
He went on to narrate how he introduced the then President during the African Union event in Abuja and how Obasanjo labelled him “Ole”, a Yoruba word for “thief”.
Ali Baba laughingly said though Obasanjo’s comment was a swipe but AU members thought it was a compliment.
