By Valentine Obienyem
History is a patient scribe. It waits – sometimes in silence, sometimes in agony- for men to reconcile their words with their deeds. In the tumultuous marketplace of Nigerian politics, many parade as prophets: bold, eloquent, impassioned. But few sustain the moral weight of their own declarations. They burn bright with outrage one moment, only to flicker and fade under the pressure of convenience the next.
Among such voices is Mr. Reno Omokri, whose career has oscillated between pseudo-activism and betrayal, between truth-telling and tactical forgetfulness, between sycophancy and boot-licking. Once, he thundered against impunity in high places, naming names and summoning moral outrage with a clarity that stirred even the indifferent. He did not merely criticise Bola Ahmed Tinubu; he condemned him as a drug lord, a moral disgrace, and a national embarrassment unfit to touch the seat of power. His language was not careful, it was combative. His tone was not speculative, it was surgical. All in all, he etched in acid, Tinubu’s life portrait. But alas, such fury, unmoored from principle, often burns out before it builds anything of substance.
Time, relentless and unsentimental, tests every conviction. It exposes not just what a man believes, but how much of it he dares to remember. Reno Omokri, who once braved the biting cold of Chicago to unearth court records with journalistic resolve, now is fleeing from the very ghosts he raised. The hand that once pointed unflinchingly at the throne of corruption now trembles or gestures vaguely elsewhere. The voice that once declared a man unworthy of office now mumbles falsehoods while retreating behind euphemism. And herein lies the tragedy, not merely a lie, but the quiet, imperceptible betrayal of one’s own truth.
For when a man recants the intensity of his former clarity, he does not merely change his mind – he fractures his credibility. He becomes a modern-day Alcibiades: eloquent yet unreliable, gifted yet treacherous, a man whose brilliance serves no cause but his own ambition. His loyalty shifts with the wind; his convictions collapse under the weight of self-interest. His retreat is not a revision but a rupture – a wound on public trust.
This compilation stands as both a mirror and a reckoning. The words that follow were not forged by his enemies, nor are they distortions by partisan hacks. They are Reno Omokri’s own: written, tweeted, and spoken with moral fervour and journalistic certainty. These were not idle remarks – they were convictions etched into the public sphere with the tone of a man who knew what he was saying and believed every word.
To forget such declarations may be a failure of memory. But to pretend they were never uttered is a deeper dishonour: a betrayal of history, and a silent mutiny against the very notion of principled dissent. What remains of moral advocacy when its loudest champions cringe at the sound of their own truths?
Let us therefore return to the record – not rumour, not reinterpretation, but the unfiltered register of the man’s own voice. These are the statements of Reno Omokri, preserved in their original intensity, when Tinubu was a villain, and Peter Obi a moral light that illuminated the world.
On Bola Ahmed Tinubu: A National Disgrace
In his most incandescent moments, Reno Omokri painted Tinubu not as a flawed politician, but as a criminal element whose very presence in Nigerian politics was a danger to the republic:
“The bigger issue with Tinubu is not his certificates, or lack of them. It is the fact that he is a known drug lord who was involved in a heroin drug cartel in the US and forfeited millions in drug funds to US authorities. As any lawyer will tell you, a forfeiture is an admission of guilt.”
— Reno Omokri
“Tinubu is a known drug lord who belongs in jail, not Aso Rock!”
— Reno Omokri (2022)
“Bola Tinubu is not a fit and proper person to occupy the office of the President of Nigeria.”
— Reno Omokri
“I personally went to court in Chicago to verify that Bola Tinubu is a certified drug lord!”
— Reno Omokri
“If anybody can get close enough to Bola Tinubu to take a sample of his hair or urine… a laboratory can analyse whether he still takes drugs – and what kind.”
— Reno Omokri (2022)
“The ‘Harass Tinubu Out of London’ protest against a drug lord at Chatham House was a resounding success!”
— Reno Omokri
“If you condemn Hushpuppi and you do not condemn Bola Tinubu, you are a hypocrite.”
— Reno Omokri
“Nigeria cannot have a known drug lord as her President. God forbid. I also challenge Tinubu to take a drug test with the NDLEA.”
— Reno Omokri
“I challenge BAT: if you were not involved in a heroin drug cartel… then take me to court.”
— Reno Omokri
“It will be a shame if Tinubu gets anywhere near Aso Rock. A nation with a drug lord as President is a nation whose passport is automatically suspect.”
— Reno Omokri
On Peter Obi: A Model of Integrity
In stark contrast, Reno once revered Peter Obi with a near-devotional tone, celebrating his frugality, leadership, and incorruptibility:
“Peter Obi is an excellent man. Of all the Southern candidates, none is close to him in terms of records of past performance. He became a governor without a godfather.”
— Reno Omokri
“Peter Obi raised the bar of leadership in Nigeria. Can you believe that since he left office, he has not taken anything – not a penny – from the state?”
— Reno Omokri
“Obi’s detribalised mindset sets him far above his contemporaries.”
— Reno Omokri
“I am so proud of ex-Governor Peter Obi. I am very proud of the man. Do we still have people like him in Nigeria?”
— Reno Omokri
“In Peter Obi, Nigeria has hope for stellar and exemplary leadership.”
— Reno Omokri
“Obi made money for himself in the private sector, and he made money for Anambra State.”
— Reno Omokri
“It is an honour to be associated with a personality such as Obi.”
— Reno Omokri
On Himself: The Vanishing Moral Compass
Sometimes, Reno turned the spotlight on himself—boasting of his mentor, his moral compass, and his refusal to be swayed by sycophancy:
“My Leader (Peter Obi), thank you, sir. I am trying to follow in your esteemed footsteps. You are the best Nigeria has to offer, and we are many treading the path you set for us.”
— Reno Omokri (2020)
Final Verdict: The Collapse of a Witness
Reno Omokri has become the very stinking tale he once told with dramatic flair. Like a prophet who forgets his own revelation, he now stumbles through the alleyways of political opportunism, clutching relevance with hands stained by contradiction. His words have not aged, they remain as damning and potent as ever, but their speaker has withered, receding into the fog of disowned integrity.
The pertinacity with which Reno clings to nonsense, his wilful blindness to counsel, and the consequent prejudice that warps his judgment will certainly doom him to irrelevance, or worse, to the tragic fate of becoming a regrettable footnote in the chronicles of opportunistic politics.
His story is not merely the fall of a commentator, it is the corrosion of character. Reno’s metamorphosis from truth-teller to truth-denier is not just disappointing; it is disgraceful. He has hung his conscience on a hook of expediency and left it to rot under the harsh glare of public memory. And so, we leave him here – not vindicated, not misunderstood, but self-condemned, judged by the one tribunal from which there is no appeal: his own unedited voice.
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
