Former aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, has accused Peter Obi of ”gaslighting” the North (Arewa) into protesting against the Bola Tinubu-led federal government.
While speaking in an interview on Channels TV, Omokri accused Obi of deceiving the North into protesting and destroying their region.
He described the protest as a deliberate ploy by Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 presidential election, to turn Northerners against themselves and against the federal government.
According to Omokri, ”Arewa must face the fact that they were gaslighted. Not one of the protest organisers or promoters is from the core North. Not a single one. Yet, the killings, destruction of public property, and looting of private businesses took place entirely in Northern Nigeria.”
He mentioned that ”This was a psychological operation against Arewa. To turn you against yourselves and the Federal Government. In less than twenty-four hours, billions of Naira worth of property were destroyed, and people were waving the Russian flags.”
He berated the North for flying Russian flags despite knowing nothing about Russia or its president, Vladimir Putin.
”What do the poor Northern masses know about Russia? What is their business with Putin?” he quarried.
”Someone somewhere gave them those flags, and it is even possible that those people are not even Mutanen Arewa,” he said.
”This was a sophisticated and well-planned operation to sabotage Northern Nigeria by the enemies of Arewa.
”These are the same people who reported me to the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, on the day the protest started, falsely claiming that I was the second in command of Hamas and asking the Israelis to assassinate me.
”If this was truly a national protest, the organisers have priced in the past that they knew how to mobilise the whole of Nigeria if they so wished. That they did not do so was not a mistake. It was a strategic move,” Omokri added.
He accused Obi of inciting the protest that has led to the loss of lives and properties mostly in the north.
Omokri said, ”Arewa should think deeply. Someone was caught on a leaked audio promising to wage “religious war” on you during the Yes Daddy scandal. And then that same person incited a protest that led to severe loss of lives and massive destruction of public property only in Arewa and nowhere else in Nigeria, and the penny has not dropped for you?
”Kano not only pays the minimum wage but also started paying $20,000 wage support to their state workers in addition to their salaries.
”Yet, there was a destructive protest in Kano. Meanwhile, Abia does not pay minimum wage, owes almost a year’s salary, and does not even pay wage support, yet there was no protest in Abia, a Labour Party-governed state. How does that make sense, Arewa?”
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