- Safiu Kehinde
Former Presidential spokesperson, Reno Omokri, has challenged suspended Kogi lawmaker, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, to take a lie detector test over sexual harassment allegation against the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
The media aide to former Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, challenged Natasha to take the test to prove her allegations against Akpabio.
Omokri made the call in a post on his X handle on Friday while recounting how he was falsely accused by the Kogi lawmaker on similar incident of sexual harassment.
He urged Akpabio’s critics, including former Minister of Solid Minerals, Oby Ezekwesili, to encourage Natasha to take lie detector test as he described her allegation against the Senate President as a Deja Vu.
Omokri, in reference to Natasha’s allegation against her in 2021, held that the suspended lawmaker is acting on past behaviour.
“On Tuesday October 12, 2021, Natasha Akpoti had a dispute with me. And after the dispute, she went on social media and accused me of sexually harassing her. She claimed that at a State Banquet at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa held by President Goodluck Jonathan for the visiting Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, on Tuesday, May 6, 2024, I had sexually harassed her.
“Now the thing is, months before, the Chibok girls were abducted. And as one of his Presidential spokesmen, President Jonathan sent me to the United States as a Special Envoy to try to clean up Nigeria’s image. I left in April, and I wasn’t back in Nigeria until the end of May.
“So, all these things, Natasha Akpoti lied. What I did, I went on social media, and I published my passport stamp with my passport leaving Nigeria and then entering the United States showing stamps.
“And I also published the First-Class British Airway ticket showing that I left Nigeria for the United Kingdom and from the United Kingdom to the United States and I wasn’t in Nigeria throughout the time when Natasha Akpoti accused me. So, she obviously lied.
“So, what happened is that after the newspaper published my evidence, Natasha deleted all traces of her accusations. She deleted everything. She had made a video insulting me and my wife and my newborn daughter. She also deleted that.
“The next day, I got a phone call from a prominent Christian clergyman, and he felt that as a fellow Pastor, I will listen to a member of the body of Christ.
He called me on three ways with Emmanuel Uduaghan, Natasha Akpoti’s present husband. They appealed to me, quoting the scriptural references about Christians taking each other to court. And I listened to them, we settled the matter out of court, and I was paid a large amount of money as damages and I let the matter go.
“So, fast-forward, four years later, Natasha Akpoti had a dispute with the Senate President. After that dispute, she went on Arise TV and accused him of sexual harassment. It sounds like Deja vu.
“Now the thing is, I do not know if those allegations are true. But one thing I know is that Natasha Akpoti is a liar.
“Here is the thing, the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Before Nigerians crucify Senator Godswill Akpabio, I will encourage people like Oby Ezekwesili and others now agitating to ask Natasha Akpoti to take a lie detector test. It is very easy.
“Come out, take a test, be escorted by one Senator that is in your support and another Senator that is just objective.
“And if you don’t want that, you can actually go with Oby Ezekwesili herself and a third party- maybe somebody from CAN or National Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs or some other objective body.
“Do a lie detector test because if you think about what happened to me, if I didn’t have the ticket and my passport stamped and even videos and photographs of me in the State Department at Washington and later at my son’s school in San Fransico, everybody would have believed that I sexually harassed Natasha Akpoti.” Omokri wrote.