by Mohammed Bello Doka
30 January, 2026.
Reno Omokri has long styled himself as the General Overseer of Stomach Infrastructure — the man who claims to be wiser than everyone around him, especially those in power. That self-image has been his brand, his platform, and, now, it appears to be his bridge back into power. The very posture that once made him a loud moral prosecutor of Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the same posture that helped rehabilitate his public image and earned him an ambassadorial appointment.
But it is important to be clear about who his victims are in this story. They are not faceless abstractions. They are Tinubu’s inner political circle, heavily Yoruba-centric, and the Lagos–Ibadan media ecosystem, equally Yoruba-centric and deeply embedded in Christian evangelical networks. These are the audiences Omokri understood, targeted, and ultimately outplayed. They were once his sworn enemies; today, they are the very platforms that normalised his return.
For years, Omokri was not a cautious commentator — he was a relentless amplifier of sensational narratives. This pattern was firmly established during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, when Omokri actively promoted and amplified claims of a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria. He spoke with evangelical certainty, framed the violence as targeted extermination, and fed international and local Christian audiences with alarmist conclusions. He was not a bystander to that narrative; he was one of its loudest megaphones.
Nowhere was this clearer than in his handling of the so-called “Christian genocide” debate. When U.S. politicians and evangelical groups began accusing Nigeria of committing genocide against Christians, Omokri positioned himself as both insider and moral authority, speaking in tones calibrated to resonate with evangelical sensibilities dominant in sections of the Lagos–Ibadan media corridor.
Crucially, Omokri was not a neutral actor in that debate. He promoted the genocide framing under Buhari, then rebranded himself as the chief debunker of the same narrative once power changed hands. To his followers, he was the enlightened intermediary — wiser than the politicians, wiser than the media, wiser than the public.
At the height of the controversy, Omokri allegedly helped facilitate a foreign PR intervention, bringing American contacts into Nigeria under the guise of a fact-finding or narrative-correction mission. The intention was straightforward: use American voices to soften or reverse the genocide claims that had earlier gained traction — claims Omokri himself had helped legitimise. The plan failed. Instead of denying the allegations, one visiting American figure publicly reinforced concerns about mass violence and displacement, describing conditions critics said aligned with genocide definitions. What was meant to bury the story instead revived it on an international stage.
That episode revealed something fundamental about Omokri’s method. To him, religion was never a conviction — it was an instrument. Under Buhari, Christian genocide claims were useful and were amplified. Under Tinubu, with Omokri now aligned with the same power structure he once attacked, the same claims suddenly became exaggerations, misinformation, or foreign propaganda. Consistency was never the goal; positioning was.
Then came the election — and the pivot.
Once Tinubu won and consolidated power — and once Omokri found himself within the orbit of that power — his tone changed completely. Allegations once treated as moral certainties were quietly withdrawn. Court rulings were suddenly elevated as definitive moral closure. And just as importantly, Omokri began a deliberate ethnic recalibration.
He “remembered” his Yoruba connection.
Despite not being ethnically Yoruba, Omokri began publicly celebrating Yoruba identity and promoting Lukumi Yoruba culture, framing Yoruba people in glowing moral and civilisational terms. These were not neutral anthropological observations. They were emotionally charged affirmations aimed squarely at a Yoruba-centric political and media elite — the same elite that dominates Tinubu’s inner circle and the Lagos–Ibadan opinion space.
In doing so, Omokri signalled belonging where it mattered most. Tribe became reassurance. Culture became currency. Identity became access.
At the same time, he doubled down on his pastoral posture, presenting himself as a Christian moral voice committed to unity and national healing. This was not accidental. Tinubu’s political ecosystem is acutely sensitive to religious legitimacy, particularly within Christian evangelical media circles that shape public perception in the South-West. Omokri understood this vulnerability and exploited it with precision.
This is where the “wiser-than-his-victims” posture becomes unmistakable. Omokri treated Tinubu’s inner circle and the Lagos–Ibadan evangelical media not as equals, but as audiences to be managed. He spoke to them in the language they wanted to hear — faith, ethnicity, reconciliation — while quietly discarding the absolutist accusations that once defined his commentary. Those who once amplified his genocide rhetoric now amplified his reinvention.
The reward was predictable. Omokri was not merely forgiven; he was absorbed. He emerged not as a penitent outsider, but as an ambassador-designate under the same administration he had once portrayed as morally unfit to govern.
This raises an unavoidable question: if Omokri’s earlier genocide claims and moral accusations were reckless, why should the man who promoted them be trusted to represent Nigeria abroad? And if they were sincere, why did they evaporate so cleanly once power changed hands and personal fortunes improved?
The answer lies in pattern, not personality. Omokri’s career reveals a method built on instrumental belief. Tribe and religion are not principles to him; they are tools. When useful, they are amplified. When inconvenient, they are denied. When power shifts, so does conviction.
His victims — Tinubu’s Yoruba-centric inner circle and the Lagos–Ibadan evangelical media — were not defeated through argument. They were outmanoeuvred through reassurance. Omokri did not overpower them; he outsmarted them, telling them exactly what they needed to hear at precisely the moment they needed to hear it.
Nigeria’s public space cannot survive this kind of opportunism unchallenged. You cannot amplify Christian genocide narratives under one government, attempt to erase them under another, and then demand applause for “maturity.” Integrity does not work that way. History does not reset itself because stomach infrastructure has been secured.
Reno Omokri’s appointment does not cleanse his record — it exposes it. It confirms how certainty can be traded, how religion and ethnicity can be weaponised, and how those who believe themselves to be gatekeepers of power can still be outwitted by someone who understands their vulnerabilities better than they understand themselves.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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