Benjamin Bello: A Real Character

If this sum­mer has been about any­thing beyond virus­es, I think it’s safe to say that the top­ic of Pres­i­dents has been front and cen­ter. I sup­pose last sum­mer as well, and the one before that, and…well. So it’s fit­ting that this week’s guest entered our comedic sphere play­ing the leader of a nation, albeit a fic­tion­al one.

Niger­ian-born Ben­jamin Bel­lo (née Pres­i­dent Obon­jo of the Laf­ta Repub­lic , in char­ac­ter) marched into the room (well, a clos­et) for his first show on our 2020 Iso­la­tion Com­e­dy series, and his com­mand­ing pres­ence is one befit­ting both a politi­cian and a come­di­an. It’s impres­sive for some­one com­ing into com­e­dy at the ripe age of 45, rel­a­tive­ly late in indus­try norms. 

Bel­lo has mem­o­ries of being fun­ny, even not­ing that his father com­ment­ed that he liked to bring his son along ​“because he made him laugh”. It was­n’t until long after his move to the UK that his sense of ​“being nat­u­ral­ly fun­ny” start­ed to solid­i­fy into a con­cept he could apply as a pro­fes­sion. I’ll do my best to refrain from say­ing ​“unortho­dox” when refer­ring to his move into for­mal comedic work, but it’s hard to avoid when so many of his expe­ri­ences stem from sto­ries that start along the lines of ​“have you ever been to a Niger­ian wedding?”. 

It was at said wed­dings that a younger Bel­lo, in the role of emcee, both real­ized his joy, and was told by guests how unique it was to have the crowd rolling with laugh­ter at an often-for­mal event. He now had the moti­va­tions and seeds to begin shap­ing his love of being fun­ny into some­thing cohe­sive. That phase start­ed around 2011, but it was­n’t until 2016 when, after advanc­ing in his first com­e­dy com­pe­ti­tion, when he real­ized that com­e­dy was ​“real”, and ​“some­thing some­one could ​“actu­al­ly make a career out of this”. 

Pri­or to com­ing out of this five-year ​“daze” as Bel­lo calls it, he was work­ing from vague ideas of how he want­ed to enter­tain. ​“I knew that I want­ed to cre­ate some­thing dif­fer­ent and unique,” Bel­lo says. ​“I knew I did­n’t want to do [straight] stand up. I want­ed to enter­tain peo­ple.” A noble goal indeed, but it required him to become famil­iar with the process­es in the indus­try, with­out even an under­stand­ing of book­ers and promoters. 

To many come­di­ans, those peo­ple and process­es are most­ly-lit­er­al ​“gate­keep­ers”, decid­ing who can get into a club, who head­lines, who even gets stage time. While Bel­lo under­stands the prag­mat­ic nature of these things much more now, he still hopes that suc­cess can fol­low tal­ent, not net­work­ing skills. ​“I pre­fer to be judged by my per­for­mance, my mate­r­i­al,” he notes, and would much pre­fer ​“if audi­ences were gatekeepers”.

So, whith­er Pres­i­dent Obon­jo? Bel­lo’s sig­na­ture char­ac­ter was born of a mix of for­tu­itous cir­cum­stances and hap­pen­stance. At the time, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma was a top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion on the inter­na­tion­al stage (and appar­ent­ly the tar­get of a bit of a crush for Bel­lo’s wife). Bel­lo’s fam­i­ly his­to­ry includ­ed sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions of ser­vice in the African army (though his par­ents stopped him from doing the same). When a chance walk led Bel­lo to a sec­ond-hand army goods store and he saw the uni­forms avail­able (Obon­jo’s sig­na­ture dic­ta­tor-haute), every­thing clicked. 

Think­ing of the chal­lenges the US pres­i­dent was fac­ing get­ting his ini­tia­tives through a high­ly par­ti­san gov­ern­ment, Bel­lo saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty. ​“I thought: that’s what Oba­ma actu­al­ly needs. Oba­ma needs to be an African president…a real African dic­ta­tor,” he recalls, and the char­ac­ter of Pres­i­dent Obon­jo was born. As such comedic ori­gin sto­ries go, that spark and con­vic­tion led to tak­ing Obon­jo to the stage, and Bel­lo being told after­ward that he’d ​“found his mojo”. In a tale of an enter­tain­er’s ship look­ing for port, it seems Bel­lo had final­ly sailed into his. 

Audi­ences imme­di­ate­ly loved Obon­jo, though they could­n’t say why, stat­ing they felt they weren’t sup­posed to like this guy, but absolute­ly did. And that’s some of the mag­ic of Bel­lo’s cre­ation: a com­mand­ing tone and pos­ture paired with army fatigues sets up an expec­ta­tion in the mind (even if based on car­i­ca­tures), then top­ples it by stri­dent­ly talk­ing lov­ing­ly about his ​“nation” and the ways he wants to pre­serve and improve it. 

The char­ac­ter rapid­ly grew in pop­u­lar­i­ty, even lead­ing to a poten­tial sit­com offer for Bel­lo. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, some­one less scrupu­lous than the benev­o­lent Obon­jo decid­ed to take the idea, change the name, and run with it, leav­ing Bel­lo in the lurch. But fans have con­tin­ued to stay with Bel­lo, con­stant­ly engag­ing with his fan page, and start­ing tags like #SaveObon­jo on Twit­ter. The Pres­i­dent even par­tic­i­pat­ed in a debate with a Lon­don may­oral can­di­date, who at times found him­self won­der­ing if it tru­ly was a char­ac­ter or real dictator. 

The suc­cess of a char­ac­ter that ​“writes itself”, while fan­tas­tic in so many ways for Bel­lo, did have the effect of some­what stalling growth in oth­er pro­fes­sion­al areas. ​“I did­n’t want to be seen as an Insta­gram or Tik­Tok star, but I’m glad I embraced it,” he jokes, gra­cious for the suc­cess. As Obon­jo grew in pop­u­lar­i­ty on Insta­gram, Club­house* and Tik­Tok (and con­tin­ues to do so), Bel­lo the come­di­an has turned his focus to build­ing his writ­ing chops, just com­ing off a five-week com­e­dy course. 

* At the time of pub­li­ca­tion, Obon­jo’s Club­house account was sus­pend­ed for com­men­taries made about the Afghan human­i­tar­i­an crisis.

Still, the Pres­i­dent (as they often do) con­tin­ues to loom large. As Bel­lo works on mate­r­i­al that draws on his own life, step­ping away from the char­ac­ter, audi­ences (and pro­mot­ers) have been gra­cious but con­tin­ue to demand proof-of-life that the Pres­i­dent will return. 

While Bel­lo laments the strong asso­ci­a­tion to a sin­gu­lar char­ac­ter, even claim­ing at times that he has a twin broth­er who is real­ly behind Obon­jo, he feels ​“no regrets” about what he’s cre­at­ed. He likens the rela­tion­ship to that of an actor and their roles, ​“but [at least actors] have dif­fer­ent characters”.

The good news for all of Bel­lo’s fans, includ­ing us at CW, is that both the real and fic­tion­al com­e­dy will con­tin­ue. As men­tioned, you can find Bel­lo (in mul­ti­ple forms) on Club­house and Tik­Tok. He’s con­tin­u­ing to build his profile(s) in the Lon­don com­e­dy scene as well. As live com­e­dy returns, and Bel­lo plans to per­form at Edin­burgh Fringe Fes­ti­val, we are cer­tain to see and hear more of him (them?) in the future.

And since, as Bel­lo notes, peo­ple are ​“fright­ened” to return to a chang­ing world, who bet­ter than a benev­o­lent (and hilar­i­ous) dic­ta­tor to lead them back out?

Want to know more about com­e­dy in Lon­don, England?

Ben­jam­in’s rec­om­men­da­tions for comics to check out from Lon­don (and Nige­ria) include: Moses Olaiya (stage name of Baba Sala), Gina Yashere, Njam­bi McGrath, and Aaron Simmonds.

If you’re in Lon­don, Ben­jamin says doors are open­ing up again and there’s a lot to see. Recent­ly, there’s been an empha­sis on diver­si­ty in line­ups and you’re also see­ing more women on shows and more women at the top of the bills (line­ups). He thinks the future is bright for the British com­e­dy scene, but some peo­ple are still hes­i­tant to go out due to Covid. He rec­om­mends check­ing out www​.chor​tle​.co​.uk or www​.beyondthe​joke​.co​.uk for all things British comedy.

Fol­low Benjamin:

• Twit­ter — @benjaminbbello

Fol­low Pres­i­dent Obonjo:

• Twit­ter — @realObonjo // @Laftarepublic
• Insta­gram — @obonjo
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​P​r​e​s​i​d​e​n​t​-​O​bonjo
• Tik­Tok — @presidentobonjo
• Youtube — Youtube​.com/​P​r​e​s​i​d​e​n​t​O​bonjo

Ben­jamin can be seen and heard:

• Pod­casts Host­ed — If Come­di­ans Ruled The World with Pres­i­dent Obonjo
• Com­e­dy Albums/​Specials — Pres­i­dent Obon­jo: Good­bye, Mr. Pres­i­dent (2020)
• Hon­ors — Mal­com Hard­ee Award Win­ner (2019 Edin­burg Fringe)