Veteran comedian Alibaba has voiced his concerns about the growing lack of professionalism among certain Nigerian comedians.
Dubbed the ‘King of Comedy,’ Alibaba criticized some of his colleagues— including three well-known names he chose not to mention— for their lack of decorum and tendency to make offensive jokes.
Speaking on a recent episode of the Outside The Box podcast, he shared an incident where he recommended a comedian to host a corporate event, only to later hear that the comedian had made an inappropriate joke about the chairman’s plus-size wife, causing embarrassment.
He explained that when he tried to correct the said comedian, he claimed Ali Baba was jealous of his progress.
He said, “There are about three Nigerian comedians who I can’t stand. They have no decorum. They insult sensibilities. You try to correct them, they won’t listen to you. You send them to a cooperate event and they do dirty jokes. And when you received report of their unruly behaviour and you confront them, they would downplay it.
“Somebody called me one time to complain about one of them that he made a joke about his plus-size wife. He said, ‘If a race happens now and everyone has to carry their wives and run, you can’t carry this woman and run.’ I was like, that’s below the belt. When I confronted him, he downplayed it. He even told somebody that I was only confronting him because he was shining.”
Alibaba said comedians should know where to draw the lines.
He explained that he wouldn’t mention the names of those unruly comedians so as not to jeopardise their careers. However, he advised them to focus on making intelligent jokes.