President Bola Tinubu came to Akwa Ibom on Friday, commissioned a few projects at the Victor Attah International Airport, then turned the podium into a comedy cellar and bodied his opposition in front of a live audience.
He called Peter Obi a man who “ran away from the erosion in Anambra” and still wants to be president — a jab at Anambra’s long-running erosion crisis, which has plagued the state for decades. He framed Atiku Abubakar as a party-hopper who abandoned the PDP the moment his leadership was challenged, then resurfaced in “ADC or somewhere,” still hunting the presidency. Then he asked the crowd the question every roast battle lives for: will you give such a person who has no leadership quality, no sense of responsibility, the highest office in the land?
He continued.
“Will Nigeria ever go back to subsidy?” he asked, then answered his own question with a list of conditions that will never be met. Somewhere in the middle, he invented “uncommon governor” as a unit of measurement and declared the erosion-reclaimed resort a place to enjoy life.
Then came the line for Peter Obi that will outlive the speech. “President of where?” he asked, before adding something that sounded like “Lily Kabu” and will be debated on X for the next 48 hours. Everybody is quoting it.
He branded his own overnight stay a “second-term presidential sleep,” which is the kind of thing politicians don’t say and comedians charge money for. He told residents to guard their PVCs. He promised Akwa Ibom a deep sea port. Senate President Godswill Akpabio pledged the state’s 2027 backing while Governor Umo Eno smiled through a speech that wasn’t about him.
The contrast Akwa Ibom State is pure Nollywood: governors nodding gravely while the president delivers punchlines and calls it governance. Keep your promise, he said, I’ll keep mine. Also, your candidate ran from erosion.
Obi’s camp had not responded.
