A former presidential aide Reno Omokri has revealed how he was able to get back into the good books of President Bola Tinubu.
Omokri who was recently nominated as an ambassador by the president said that while he admits to having previously made uncomplimentary remarks against Tinubu, he has since apologised for his unruly comments.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, January 28, Omokri while reacting to remarks made against him by publisher Omoyele Sowore in court, said he believes the comments he made about Tinubu were true at the time he uttered them.
Recall that before the 2023 presidential election, Omokri who was on the opposition at the time outrightly called Tinubu “a drug baron”.
However, while stating that he has accepted Tinubu as Nigeria’s President following his inauguration, the ambassadorial nominee said he has since called on Nigerians to move on.
“Subsequent to making those statements, I discovered that they were not, in fact, true, and I publicly withdrew them in writing and on video at various times and through multiple platforms.
“On the day that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was sworn in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which was Monday, May 29, 2023, I released a statement affirming him as President of Nigeria and urging members of the public to put the past behind them and give him their full support,” Omokri said.
He also noted that he repeated his stance on the matter and public call on the day the Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled in favour of the President, after dismissing the petitions against him brought by Atiku Abubakar, and Peter Obi, amongst others.
Reeling out some of the actions he had taken to “right his wrongs”, Omokri said he has over time appeared on various television stations’ interviews to prove that Tinubu had been exonerated from all allegations.
“Prior to that, I had sought a private audience with the President himself on October 1, 2024, where I flew into Nigeria from my home in California, and apologised to him in person, prostrating flat on the ground, before stating that I was misled by publications in the media into making those statements, and that my actions were not malicious, but that I was then labouring under a mistaken belief that what I had read in the media was true, when in fact it was wrong.
“Finally, in law, it is ultra vires, and well established by the rule against hearsay, to use previous statements made at a time when it was believed to be true to establish the veracity of a claim you yourself caused to be published, or to justify yourself or offer a defence, when the maker of that statement has admitted that the statements were made in good faith, but subsequently found to be untrue, and then publicly withdrawn, with various attempts at restitution made by the author of those statements you seek to rely on,” he said.
He further noted that Sowore cannot rely on the statements he made prior to the 2023 elections – which were published on his platform, Sahara Reporters – to defend his (Sowore’s) utterances in August 2025.
“I again affirm today, as I have proclaimed multiple times since Thursday, October 26, 2023, that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not, has never been, and will never be a drug lord. He is a person of good character, high moral standing, and a professed Muslim, with the largeness of heart to forgive his enemies and opponents when they realise the error of their ways and recant, which is, amongst other reasons, why he is uniquely and particularly suited to lead a multiethnic, multicultural, multi-religious, and multiracial country like Nigeria,” he added.
