TheCable

Reno Omokri, former aide of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, has described Peter Campbell, a US diplomat, as a “busybody consultant out to insult Nigerians with his procured opinions”.

Campbell, a former US ambassador to Nigeria, had said Patience Jonathan was widely disliked, arrogant and flamboyant during her husband’s time as president.

He said Jonathan was yet to be convicted of crimes she allegedly committed.

But writing on his Facebook page on Sunday, Omokri said Campbell sunk to a new low of insulting the former first lady.

“Ambassador Campbell should be informed that while it is the custom of his clients to consign women to ‘the other room’, President Jonathan had no such inclination and has the proud distinction of being the first and only Nigerian leader to have reserved 35% of all appointive positions at the federal level to women,” he wrote.

“Empowering women does not mean that you have made them arrogant. Former president Goodluck Jonathan empowered women and no one, not even Ambassador John Campbell, can put that genie back in the bottle.

“If Ambassador Campbell’s busybody-ness cannot be contained, then I advise him to get busy writing about the $26 billion NNPC, monumental fraud, the former SGF, Babachir Lawal’s grass cutter scandal and the indicted transport minister, Rotimi Amaechi, who admitted to spending $1 million on a one day dinner for Professor Wole Soyinka.”

Omokri also said Campbell’s claim that there is “push back” against President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption campaign, especially among the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Christians, beats his imagination.

The ex-ambassador had also alleged that the move by the house committee on public petitions to arrest Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), for failing to appear before it, was spearheaded by southern, Christian and PDP representatives.

Omokri, however, faulted his claims, saying “the house of representatives is a legally constituted legislative body with powers to summon and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is a legally constituted law enforcement body that should be subject to the law”.

“How Ambassador Campbell can expect his readers to believe that a minority party like the PDP can dominate the House of Representatives, led on all fronts by members of the ruling All Progressive Congress beats the imagination,” he wrote.

“Moreover, not that it should matter, but there are more Muslims than Christians in the house of representatives. How Ambassador Campbell wants any sane person to believe that Christians dominate Muslims in the house of representatives and have led them to issue a warrant of arrest on the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission agains beggars belief.”