CAIRO — In a Feb. 24 speech at the Egypt Vision 2030 conference — a speech that lasted more than an hour and a half — President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pointed to a series of indicators showing the difficult economic conditions in the country in light of poor revenues and Egypt’s need for imported food and petroleum products.

To describe the gravity of the situation, Sisi said, “I will use the expression 'very, very difficult.' … If it were possible for me to be sold, I would sell myself." Sisi then called on every Egyptian who has a mobile phone to donate one Egyptian pound (13 cents) every day by sending a text message to the Long Live Egypt Fund.

It's estimated that 90 million Egyptians have mobile phones, he said, and if just 10 million of them participate, it will generate 300 million Egyptian pounds a month and almost 4 billion Egyptian pounds (roughly $500 million) a year.

Social media users have mocked Sisi’s improvised speech for the past few weeks. One prankster even put the president up for sale on the global auction site eBay describing him as a "lightly used field marshal." Twitter and Facebook users were split among those who supported and those who ridiculed Sisi’s request for the donation every day. They also made fun of Sisi for saying, “Please, do not listen to anyone but me” and for losing his temper when addressing his opponents and saying, “Who are you? … I will remove from the face of the Earth anyone plotting to bring down the government.”