Barring any last-minute change in plans, ambassadorial nominee Reno Omokri may have his nomination rejected over some of his past negative actions and utterances against President Bola Tinubu.
Behind the alleged plot is an influential senator from one of the states in the South-South who has reportedly vowed to thwart Omokri’s final confirmation by the Senate.
NewsNGR gathered late Thursday night that the lawmaker was already mobilising a few other senators towards having the nominee’s confrontation blocked by the Senate-in-session.
The vocal senator is said to have argued that if Omokri is confirmed, it would send the wrong signal to the Nigerian public, and to the global audience, that all the unprintable names he called President Tinubu during the 2023 electioneering were indeed true.
Omokri, who supported the then presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, is on record, calling Tinubu a drug baron and likening him to the notorious Colombian drug lord, the late Pablo Escobar, among other derogatory remarks.
He is also seen in a December 2022 viral video leading a protest against Tinubu at the Chatham House, London, when the President appeared before a panel to speak to a global audience on his plans for Nigeria if he was to be elected.
Omokri was seen and heard in the said video carrying a placard, chanting “Tinubu ole,” “Tinubu ole,” (ole is a Yoruba name for a thief) as he mobilised fellow protesters to heckle Tinubu who was then the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In some of his public statements before the 2023 election, Omokri had vowed never to accept any appointment from Tinubu, citing what he described as his “personal principles.”
Worried by public perception of Omokri’s numerous derogatory remarks on the President’s public image in Nigeria and outside the country, the senator, who is known for his past activism, is said to have vowed to stop his confirmation.
It was further gathered that the aggrieved senator, who is a long standing political associate of the President, is insisting that if confirmed, the President, and indeed Nigeria, would not look good in the eyes of any country Omokri gets posted to as an ambassador.
As at late Thursday night, the lawmaker, was reported to be making moves to reach President Tinubu, with a view to prevailing on him to either drop Omokri, or to have him disqualified during the final confirmation process on the floor of the Senate.
In what has now come to be known as the “El Rufai treatment,” the immediate past governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, was rejected by the Senate for ministerial position.
President Tinubu had, in 2023, forwarded El-Rufai’s name to the Senate as one of his ministerial nominees for confirmation.
The former governor had appeared before the Senate and had answered all the senators’ questions satisfactorily, only to be rejected based on “security report.”
That humiliating experience was one of the main reasons El-Rufai left the APC for the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in March 2025.
Meanwhile, it was a rowdy session earlier on Thursday when Omokri appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs for screening, alongside other nominees.
Attempts by the senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, to grill Omokri over his past attacks on President Tinubu was however, punctured by another senator, Ali Ndume.
Oshiomhole and Ndume are both members of the Foreign Affairs committee of the Senate, and their opposing standpoints led to a heated argument between the two.
Apparently aware of Oshiomhole’s mission, Ndume, who represents Borno South, took the wind off the Edo senator’s sail, thereby providing an escape route for Omokri.
Obviously miffed by Ndume’s attempt to block him from asking the nominee some uncomfortable questions, Oshiomhole said, “Look, I cannot be intimidated by people who go here and there. After all, we see people on television questioning this list,”
But Ndume retorted, saying that Senate procedure must be followed by the committee, stressing that a motion was already on ground as to whether to confirm or reject the nominee.
“The procedure is that if there is a motion on the ground, it should be seconded. If it is not seconded, it’s dead,” Ndume said.
But Oshiomhole pressed further,
“Just allow me to continue… as Oshiomhole sought protection of the committee chairman to enable him air his views.
But the chairman of the committee, Senator Abubakar Sani Bello, urged Oshiomhole to round off his speech.
Undeterred, Oshiomhole continued, “All right. Mr Chairman, I think I need to speak on this in the public interest, with particular reference to the nomination of Reno (Omokri). We cannot pretend we have not heard stories.”
But Ndume drew his attention to the fact that there was no petition before the Senate challenging Omokri’s nomination and that the Senate cannot invent one.
Obviously enraged, Oshiomhole directed his attack at Ndume, “When I talk, those who have not been governors should listen.” He explained further that Tinubu must have nominated Omokri as a sign of forgiveness for whatever darts the nominee must have thrown at him in the past.
Ndume was irked by Oshiomhole’s remark of having been former governor in the past, a position the Borno senator has never attained in his political career.
“You have never dreamt of being a senator when I became one,” he fired back at the Edo senator.
The committee chairman intervened at this point, pointing out that there was a motion on the floor on whether or not to clear Omokri.
The nominee was eventually cleared by the committee, but his clearance is still subject to a final confirmation by the Senate in a committee of the whole, in which all the senators at plenary will vote for his confirmation or rejection through a voice vote.
While the verbal exchange between Oshiomhole and Ndume lasted, Omokri sat glued to his seat, apparently reflecting on the issues being raised against him, and probably wondering what would become of his nomination at the final stage.
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