By Valentine Obienyem
Each time Mr. Reno Omokri writes, his posts typically attract comments from about 20 to 30 individuals – many of whom appear to be either himself under various pseudonymous guises or individuals seemingly enlisted to echo his sentiments. Of course, he is a known identity thief. Yet, curiously, once he invokes the name of Mr. Peter Obi, engagement on his posts surges to unusual levels. Mr. Obi grants him the kind of attention that no other name in the world could fetch him. His writings, often driven by falsehoods and peppered with vitriol, make no pretence to fairness, nor do they offer anything remotely edifying. – they are warfare.
In response to his unrelenting provocations, I have authored no fewer than ten carefully considered articles – each a methodical dissection of Reno Omokri’s public persona, his self-collapsing contradictions, and his almost pathological obsession with Mr. Obi, as though under some spell from which he cannot awaken.
Surprisingly, these literary interventions – born more out of a moral impulse than a desire for applause – have garnered an unexpected breadth of readership and reflection. In a world increasingly shaped by the tyranny of noise, where truth often staggers under the weight of fabrication, the quiet act of writing with integrity still seems to stir something deep in the conscience of a thoughtful few. From these quarters, I have received earnest appeals that these essays be brought together into a book, less as a personal project, and more as a contribution to the enduring struggle between truth and falsehood. It is humbling to note that one of those women he mentioned as recommended Deputies to Alhaji Abubakar Atiku is at the forefront of this suggestion. It is an idea I now contemplate with growing seriousness, not as an author merely archiving his words, but as one responding to that deeper call of posterity – to give form to thought, clarity to confusion, and perhaps, in some small measure, light to an age shadowed by dissimulation as represented by Reno.
Beyond these essays, I have written two open letters of national importance – one to the President of the Federal Republic and another to the President of the Senate – firmly opposing any consideration of Mr. Omokri for ambassadorial appointment. If, as it appears, the President or his handlers hold Reno in exaggerated esteem, they are at liberty to appoint him as a minister or even Secretary to the Government of the Federation, so that we may, at least, contain his clownish excesses within our borders. But to designate him as Nigeria’s ambassador, our moral and political face to the civilised world, is akin to applying cosmetic putty to our already diminished international image: a deception that cannot long withstand the test of scrutiny.
What becomes of Nigeria’s global image when foreign governments stumble upon Reno’s digital trail – his crude tirades in which he labelled the President a drug baron, a smelly, incontinent ancestor, a certificate forger, and worse? I shall personally make those diatribes available to them, where he itched in acid, the portraiture of Mr. President. In this era of digital permanence, diplomacy demands consistency, integrity, and dignity. Mr. Omokri’s public record undermines all three. Besides, he is psychologically and intellectually deficit.
And yet, despite his torrent of falsehoods and feverish mischief-making, I have deliberately chosen not to issue any direct rejoinder to his provocations. This restraint is not borne of hesitation or fear – certainly not. Nor is it, as one disappointed friend ventured, a sign that I dread Mr. Omokri. One is reminded of the line attributed to Pauline Bonaparte: “The sound of the cannons is nothing to the Bonapartes.” Those acquainted with the theatre of noise know better than to flinch at its blasts.
Rather, my silence springs from a deeper conviction: Reno Omokri is unworthy of sustained intellectual or moral engagement. To engage him is to confer dignity upon a performance sustained by vanity, divorced from substance, and choreographed solely for the stage of digital spectacle. It would be akin to shadow-boxing with a mirror – noisy, exhausting, and ultimately futile.
From time to time, I have skimmed through his online postings, perhaps searching in vain for a trace of depth, humility, or coherence. Instead, I encountered a painfully pedantic showman – a man obsessed with appearing as a polymath, reminding one of his ancient correlate: the sophist, who, like him, thrived not on the pursuit of truth but on the illusion of knowledge.
Like the Sophists of old, he is more concerned with appearing wise than being wise; more invested in argumentation than understanding; more interested in persuading the crowd than in pursuing the good. He quotes Scripture as though it were a talisman, drops names of people like confetti, and deploys faulty and dubious historical references as if they were ornaments in a rhetorical parade. I was happy to read that the former urbane President of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, had warned him to stop dropping his name. Atiku sounded the same chord when his spokesman, Mr. Paul Ibe, publicly cautioned him to desist from using the former Vice President’s name for attention-seeking ventures.
There is something fundamentally insecure about a man who must constantly clothe himself in borrowed reputations. Reno seems to believe that proximity to greatness, whether imagined or exaggerated, automatically confers significance. But reputation, like truth, is not transferrable by osmosis.
His compulsive name-dropping betrays desperation: a frantic attempt to validate himself by association. Yet, as the ancients have long taught us, character is not built through imitation but through formation – by walking the long, quiet road of discipline, not by staging noisy spectacles for applause.
What the Sophists sold in the agora for silver, he now dispenses digitally for attention – one tweet at a time. And just as Socrates distrusted those who turned wisdom into spectacle, I too find it futile to debate a man for whom truth is merely a prop in the performance of ego.
Have you noticed his frequent and boastful dare that readers should “fact-check” him? Such performative defiance could only come from one who knows most of his followers are either too distracted or too uncritical to take up the challenge. It is bravado born of knowing that his misinformation, once repeated often enough, will be believed by some. It is the confidence of a man who confuses unchecked noise with invincibility.
In truth, Reno belongs to that peculiar class of public figures who rise not by merit, rigour, or sacrifice, but by provocation and spectacle. They entertain us briefly, fill the noisy interludes in our national life, and just as suddenly as they arrive, they slip into irrelevance – becoming mere footnotes in the chronicle of political distraction.
In time, the world will tire of his antics. Time, that patient and unflinching editor, will as always perform its quiet surgery of the superficial – cutting away the hollow, the theatrical, the insincere. Reno will then be left to echo within the empty theatre of his own ego, long after the rest of us have moved on to more consequential voices, more authentic discourse, and more serious nation-building.
For my part, I will continue to choose the dignity of restraint. The truth, after all, does not scream. It endures. And in the end, silence will say what words cannot: that not every barking dog deserves a reply.
Obienyem, a Lawyer, writes from Awka
