How Omokri And Omatseye Learned The Hard Way

When Bola Ahmed Tinubu was strategizing to dethrone Goodluck and enthrone Buhari, the media was one of the most important tools he used. He recruited the young, middle-aged, and old. From mainstream media outfits like Channels TV and his proprietor John Momoh who was handsomely rewarded with BON and Unilag Governing Council Chairmanship appointments, to veteran journalists like Tony Momoh who infamously said “At the end of the day if Buhari doesn’t perform, stone us because he is going to perform,”. Tinubu’s list also included new media where he recruited Adebola Williams, J.J. Omojuwa and Tolu Ogunlesi who was rewarded with the appointment of Special Assistant on Digital/New Media to Buhari. This extensively funded team made saint Goodluck Jonathan to be so uglified that even veteran and objectively thinking journalists started seeing the democratic Goodluck as a weakling at best and a boyfriend stooge to Allison Diezaini at worst. 

Fast Forward to 2022 and you will find PDP and APC doing all to reenact the inglorious days where even Prof. Wole Soyinka was caught up in the trawling lines of Tinubu’s media men. PDP and Atiku have called on the social media award-winning social commentator Reno Omokri to do the dirty job reserved for the likes of Femi Fani Kayode. And it seems APC and Tinubu have tapped Sam Omatseye, the chairman, Editorial Board of The Nation Newspapers – Tinubu’s newspaper, to do the dirty job for APC. Unfortunately for PDP’s Atiku and Tinubu’s APC, these are different and desperate times. Nigerians have been fooled before. Some are still being fooled, but many are wiser. The wiser are in their millions and can fact-check any lie from the pit of hell. Fact-checking lies from paid individuals are even easier and comes with an online retaliation that is getting prospective journalists who aspire to be recruited by Tinubu or Atiku to have a deep rethink.

In the last few days Reno Omokri and Sam Amatseye, who comes from the same minority ethnic group as Tinubu’s wife, have seen the red eyes of the Obidients. The beauty of this unarmed force, unlike that of Atiku and Tinubu, is that it is a volunteer force (nobody is being paid shishi), whose main satisfaction and goal is to rescue Nigeria from the grips of the likes of Atiku and Tinubu who see the leadership of Nigeria as turn by turn. Many have raised alarm concerning the vehemence of this force and the ferocity of their online retaliation and attacks. And it has been suggested that at some point Peter Obi who has remained silent so far will have to intervene to give direction and regulations. If you go back to the Goodluck days and remember all the falsehoods published about Goodluck and how those narratives helped in making the plague called Buhari to become president, you will not sympathize with the object of retaliations or attacks of the Obidients.

Ata Ukuta, Editor – Towncryyers