Mr. Jonathan move is seen as an apparent maneuver to re-energize his social media image following a growing slide in his electoral fortunes as well as a series of scandals involving Mr. Omokri, who until now shaped and ran the incumbent president’s campaign on social media. Omokri, who returned from California to boost President Jonathan’s political campaigns in 2011, had become a huge liability and source of distraction.
Mr. Omokri, who also doubles as a pastor, came to be known as “Wendell Simlin” after tech-savvy Nigerian social media activists caught him red-handed as he circulated reports on the Internet that claimed to have found a link between former Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, and Islamist terror group Boko Haram. Enterprising social media sleuths discovered that the so-called reports implicating Mr. Sanusi as a sponsor of Boko Haram were first created on and disseminated from Mr. Omokri’s personal computer in Abuja.
A few weeks ago, a California-based woman, Deborah Campbell, who was once married to a relative of Mr. Omokri’s, said that the presidential aide had stolen her son’s identity to engage in the circulation of fraudulent news that smeared Mr. Sanusi, who is now the Emir of Kano. Mr. Reno never denied the woman’s allegations.
Last week, Mr. Omokri was accused of leading policemen to burglarize a house in Warri, Delta State that belonged to his late mother. The occupants of the house, including Alex Oyoro, a well known PDP political figure in Delta State, alleged that Mr. Omokri had led a group of thugs and mobile police officers who broke into the property and stole N25 million in cash.
The money, according to Mr. Oyoro, was meant for Mr. Jonathan’s re-election campaign. Mr. Omokri denied being physically present at the scene of the burglary, claiming he was at his desk in Abuja and also doing some pastoral work at the time of the reported crime.
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