Ambassador-designate Reno Omokri has reacted to comments made by Omoyele Sowore’s defence team during a trial, where they questioned his clearance by the Department of State Services (DSS) despite his historical criticisms of President Bola Tinubu.
Omokri, in a strongly worded statement cited by TVC News on Wednesday, addressed the claims made in court by Sowore and his defence counsel, Abubakar Marshal, during proceedings at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday, January 27, 2026.
The statement in question arose during the trial when Sowore’s lead counsel challenged DSS, questioning why Omokri was cleared for an ambassadorial appointment despite previously describing Tinubu as a “drug lord” on national television, a statement Omokri described as fallacious and untrue.
He said, “With regard to the claims made by Mr Omoyele Sowore and his counsel, Mr Abubakar Marshal, in court on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, I do freely admit that I did make uncomplimentary remarks about the then Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, while believing those comments to be true at the time I uttered them.”
Omokri admitted that he made the remarks in the past but said he later discovered they were untrue and withdrew them publicly through several media outlets.
Omokri said, “Subsequent to making those statements, I discovered that they were not, in fact, true, and I publicly withdrew them in writing and on video at various times and through multiple platforms.
“On the day that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was sworn in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which was Monday, May 29, 2023, I released a statement affirming him as President of Nigeria and urging members of the public to put the past behind them and give him their full support.”
He added, “I repeated this stance and public call on Thursday, October 26, 2023, the day the Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled in favour of the President, after dismissing the petitions against him brought by Alhaji Waziri Atiku Abubakar, and Mr Peter Obi, amongst others.
“In that judgment, the honourable court declared that there were no criminal charges or convictions against the President. It clarified what had happened in the past, which had been misrepresented by some media.
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“On the same day the judgment was rendered, I accepted it, applauded it, and stated that, based on that verdict, my stance on the statements I had made against the President had changed: not only was it wrong, but I fully believed it was fallacious.”
Omokri clarified that Sowore and his legal team cannot rely or provide statement he had since addressed as evidence in court saying, “Finally, in law, it is ultra vires, and well established by the rule against hearsay, to use previous statements made at a time when it was believed to be true to establish the veracity of a claim you yourself caused to be published, or to justify yourself or offer a defence, when the maker of that statement has admitted that the statements were made in good faith, but subsequently found to be untrue, and then publicly withdrawn, with various attempts at restitution made by the author of those statements you seek to rely on.”
Clarifying his position, Omokri detailed the measures he initiated to retract or mitigate the impact of his previous statements, characterising them as derogatory toward the President.
He said, “Two days thereafter, on Saturday, October 28, 2023, I gave an interview to TVC, in which I affirmed the Supreme Court’s judgment and declared it a righteous verdict and that their Lord Justices did a good job and followed the letter and spirit of the law.
“When members of the Peoples Democratic Party, to which I was then aligned, continued to dwell on those unfounded allegations, I arranged to be interviewed on Newscentral Television on Thursday, March 27, 2025, where I said that the President had been “exonerated”, a word that I used intentionally, as I have a Master’s in Law from the United Kingdom, and understood and wanted to project and confirm to the Nigerian public that a constitutionally recognised official body had absolved the President of any wrongdoing, which is the legal meaning of that word.”
Omokri added, “Following this, I went on the most watched talk show in Nigeria, Politics Today, on Wednesday, June 11, 2025, where I admitted to the Nigerian public and the world at large during a live broadcast that I was wrong about those statements I made about the then candidate, and that I relied on false publications in the media in making them, and that having gotten accurate judicial pronouncements that exonerated the President and established beyond any reasonable doubt that the information I had erroneously believed, chiefly from Mr Omoyele Sowore’s platform, Saharareporters, and from the mouth of Mr Sowore himself, was false, I withdrew those statements and apologised for them.
“Prior to that, I had sought a private audience with the President himself on October 1, 2024, where I flew into Nigeria from my home in California, and apologised to him in person, prostrating flat on the ground, before stating that I was misled by publications in the media into making those statements, and that my actions were not malicious, but that I was then labouring under a mistaken belief that what I had read in the media was true, when in fact it was wrong.”
Quoting from Phipson on Evidence, relied on by the Privy Council in the defining case of Teper v. R and followed by common law jurisdictions, including Nigeria, Omokri said, “Former oral or written statements by any person, whether or not he is a witness in the proceedings, may not be given in evidence if the purpose is to tender them as evidence of the truth of the matters asserted”.
“Therefore, Mr Sowore cannot rely on statements I made between 2022 and 2023, and then publicly withdrew in 2023, as a defence for statements he made in August 2025, more than two years after I made those remarks, especially as both he himself and his platform, Saharareporters, had originated those statements over a decade ago,” Omokri concluded.
