Mr. Reno Omokri deserves to be congratulated on the Nigerian Senate’s confirmation of his ambassadorial appointment, in spite of vehement opposition from some quarters to his nomination. He is a lawyer, a former Special Assistant on New Media to former President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and an avid supporter of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s 2023 bid to be president of the country.
An American missionary, Mike Arnold, who claimed to know Reno Omokri closely, said that the nominee was not fit for appointment as an ambassador, because “He was accused of sexual harassment by Sen. Natasha Akpoti at a State House event.” This allegation was in an open letter by Mike Arnold to the Nigerian Senate, and was widely circulated on social media and reported in various other media outlets on 2 December, 2025. Meanwhile, in a 22 March, 2025 X post addressed to The Economist (of London) and titled, “In the interest of transparency, please balance your coverage”, Reno Omokri had denied the allegation.
In the X post, he had written: “Senator Akpoti accused me of sexually harassing her at Aso Rock Presidential Villa, during a reception held for the visiting Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, when he visited Nigeria between May 4 and May 7 2014. … [D]uring those dates, I was sent to the United States of America as President Jonathan’s special envoy. I met and was photographed with multiple U.S. officials, including State Department officials, in Washington, D.C.”
Moreover, in a 21 September, 2025 YouTube interview with Laolu Akande, on Channels Television’s Inside Sources, Reno Omokri stated that, for the journey, he had “a first class British Airways ticket … which I had to go and ask British Airways to send to me proving that I was not in the country on May 6, 2014 when President Jonathan hosted President Kenyatta to a state banquet and also showed my passport with a stamp from US immigration.”
Raising the Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan issue in relation to the nomination therefore seemed to be what Ambassador Gbara Awanen called “emotional rhetoric” and “the weaponisation of past, failed accusations” in a 30 November, 2025 article in The Nation, titled “Why Tinubu must reject media trial of his ambassadorial nominees.” In the article, the ambassador was principally defending the nomination of his fellow Ambassador Ayodele Oke, a former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency.
Moreover, in a 1 December, 2025 Arise News assessment of the ambassadorial list, Dr. Reuben Abati had, using innuendo (or indirect reference), said: “You may well post some people to some countries and they go there and carry placards, depending on where the wind blows. Even they may carry placards against Nigeria.” More directly, Seun Okinbaloye of Channels Television, in an 11 June, 2025 YouTube interview titled “Reno Omokri defends support for Tinubu …,” referred Reno Omokri back to a protest he led against then-presidential-candidate Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and at which the nominee referred to Asiwaju in derogatory terms at Chatham House in London on 5 December, 2022.
Seun Okinbaloye asked him why he switched to supporting President Tinubu after the election. To the question, Reno Omokri replied: “Well, there’s a saying, ‘Results cancel insults.’ … We had a manifesto which I was part of putting together. That’s the Peoples Democratic Party presidential manifesto. We said we were going to do certain things. The first, we were going to remove fuel subsidy. The second, we were going to float the naira. The third, we were going to devolve power from the federal government down to the local levels. And then, we were going to have students loans. All of these things we said we were going to do, President Bola Tinubu is doing them, and he began doing them from day one. … So, when I saw the results [of what] the President was doing, I decided that, okay, this is a man to be supported.”
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In a 30 November, 2025 post, one of the very prominent Facebook staunch supporters of the president, Sunday Wale Adeniran (#SWA), wrote: “Yes, Reno worked against Tinubu as Atiku’s spokesperson but after the election, I do not know of anyone who has supported this government and promoted the nation Nigeria with more facts and figures than Omokri. This man presents his thoughts clearly backed with historical, political and economic facts that no one has ever succeeded in controverting. He also promotes our culture pro bono like no one else.”
Indeed, whenever I see Reno Omokri in his beautiful Nigerian attire, which he dons with pride, I remember the late Ambassador Olusegun Olusola of “The Village Headmaster” fame who passed away on 21 June, 2012. Sometime before his demise, in one television interview, Ambassador Olusola advocated for the active promotion of Nigerian culture, especially Nigerian fashion, as a feature of soft power on the African continent. Possibly without knowing it, Reno Omokri has been living Ambassador Olusola’s dream, even beyond Africa.
It is therefore understandable that #SWA submitted: “Reno does not only deserve an ambassadorial appointment, he [also] deserves to be posted to one of the biggest players on the global stage. He is going to be one of the best representatives of this country since independence.”
Like #SWA, Iluo-oghene, who self-identifies as a legal practitioner, poet and political analyst, noted on Facebook, on 30 November, 2025, in a post titled, “Political currency of usefulness”: “[T]he rant about Tinubu nominating Reno Omokri and Femi Fani-Kayode [FFK] as ambassadors is funny to me. … Politicians act from a strategic place, and nobody gets a seat for being a saint, but for being useful. Tinubu didn’t pick Reno and FFK because he ‘forgave’ them. He nominated them because they are not just useful, but of extreme value and influence.”
She further declared: “Since Tinubu’s emergence, Reno has defended him like Kilode [i.e., unimaginably]. During Donald Trump’s recent political circus with Nigeria’s sovereignty, Reno [fought] tooth and nail, countering misinformation internationally. Call him dramatic, cunning, a liar or annoying …, but the man is brilliant and markets Nigeria well. Now, that’s the core job of an ‘Ambassador’. … Reno and FFK earned that spot, fairly.”
On the point that Reno Omokri had called President Tinubu horrible names in the past, Iluo-oghene responded: “And so? … [N]ot everyone who criticizes the president is against him, and not everyone who publicly praises him is for him. Some critics are only playing a role, while some supporters are just acting a script.” If a person has been betrayed before by close ‘saints’, should it be strange if that person then somehow tolerates distant ‘sinners’?
In fact, at a point in time when President Tinubu and the government were under immense attack, Reno Omokri, like FFK, stuck his neck out in their defence, even when some of those who were under moral obligation to speak out kept a timid or treacherous silence. According to an anonymous quote on Instagram accessed on 8 December, 2025, “Not everyone creating problems is visible. Sometimes the real enemy hides in silence.” Moreover, the famous late African-American civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said perceptively: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Another lady argued powerfully in support of Reno Omokri’s nomination, resisting hisses and rendering other attempts to interrupt her ineffectual, at an explosive debate on the topic “Ambassadorial nomination list of Reno Omokri, Femi Fani-Kayode and Prof. Mahmood Yakubu by President Tinubu, glory or shame?” posted on YouTube by Gana@Ganaonlinetv on 4 December, 2025. The lady said: “Majority of people who have problem with Reno are the most unaccountable set of people you can ever meet. … I knew Reno even before Tinubu became president. He was really against the president. … But he was accountable enough to [carry out] his research and also come back to debunk every allegation, every false allegation.”
She continued: “None of you here markets Nigeria like Reno. …. Not [even] me. … Irrespective of who is in power, Reno has always been patriotic. Reno has always been intellectual. Reno has always [engaged in] proper debate, intellectual debate, backed with data, backed with research. None of you here can match him when it comes to that level. … He’s very qualified to be an ambassador for Nigeria.”
Reno Omokri is an efficient counterforce to political hot-air-blowers and social media killjoys. And what does he have in his tool box? A capacity for deep and extensive research, courage and rational arguments. With these, he defended the election that brought President Tinubu to office against those, like Peter Obi and his supporters, who naggingly insinuate or claim that the Independent National Electoral Commission, led by Professor Mahmood Yakubu, manipulated the 2023 presidential election to declare Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu winner.
Reno Omokri knocked down the argument in a 30 November, 2025 post on Facebook. He said: “As for the conduct of the election, all international observers publicly stated that the polls reflected the will of the Nigerian people. For example, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour of the US Department of State, stated as follows: ‘National elections were widely reported to have reflected the will of voters.’ Moreover, as I said privately to people in the Peoples Democratic Party before the election, if in 2019, when the PDP was united, we could not defeat the All Progressives Congress, how could we hope to vanquish them in 2023, when we had splintered into four. … It was just a matter of common political sense to know that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would win the election.”
Reno Omokri further addressed Peter Obi directly: “You, sir, challenged his victory at the Presidential Election Petition Court, and in your pleadings, you did not state that you won the election. Rather, you pleaded that the then President-elect was not qualified based on a conviction, not winning Abuja, and sundry other flimsy reasons which were thrown out by the courts all the way to the Supreme Court, which spent less than five minutes dismissing your appeal.” In effect, Reno Omokri also defended Professor Mahmood Yakubu against the charge that his current ambassadorial nomination is a reward for ‘making’ Tinubu president.
With the Senate confirmation of Reno Omokri’s ambassadorial nomination, in spite of stout denunciation, he needs to remember constantly that he has a point to prove, and that to whom much is given, much is expected. The whole controversy also underscores the significance of recognising, irrespective of the issue, the existence of alternative perspectives. In fact, as Amber Veal counselled: “Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, ‘Is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of different perspectives?’ Because, if not, there’s absolutely no point.”
