Mr. Odion says Mr. Abubakar is “super corrupt” and that he laundered €150 million. Even the paramilitary wing of the All Progressives Congress (a.k.a EFCC) has not accused Atiku Abubakar of such or anything close to such.


It was Lord Alfred Denning who said that you cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand. That was what flashed in my mind when I read Louis Odion’s dribble, “Atiku, Ambition and the Endgame”, which tried to argue away General Buhari’s lack of a school leaving certificate on the basis that Mr. Buhari had attended high military courses and was a former head of state.

Idi Amin was also a former head of state. Idi Amin also went on high military courses, but just as you cannot put a crown on a clown and expect a king, you cannot also put a military course on a semi-literate and expect him to be literate.

What Chapter VI, Part I, Section 131 of the Nigerian Constitution prescribes as minimum qualifications for a person to contest for the office of president is as follows:

“They have been educated up to at least School Certificate level or its equivalent.”

A military course is not an equivalent of a School Leaving Certificate.

I understand that General Buhari only last month appointed Louis Odion as his senior technical assistant on media (whatever that means), but that should not mean that Mr. Odion should succumb to intellectual laziness in his bid to please his master.

In his attempt to accuse Waziri Atiku Abubakar of fraud, he said the Peoples Democratic Party candidate dug up an old video of Lai Mohammed and passed it off as new. That is a lie and Mr. Odion knows that. But even if it were true, and so what? What matters is not when Lie Mohammed (pun intended) said what he said. What matters is whether what he said is true or not.

If I say Louis Odion is a man. That statement remains true, irrespective of when it was made. The only thing that may arguably change its validity is if Louis Odion had a sex change surgery. I know Louis has had a conscience change surgery when General Buhari appointed him as his tenth media aide, but he still remains a man. At least, I hope so.

For the avoidance of doubt, what Lie Mohammed said is as follows:

“53 years after a fellow has left secondary school. 53 years, I think we should pardon him. Because has not even known where he kept it.”

That remains true today as it was on the day the statement was made.

And Lai Mohammed’s testimony corroborates Major-General Paul Tarfa (rtd)’s evidence to the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that the Nigerian Army neither asked for nor retained the school certificates of enlisted men or recruits.

Both Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Tarfa corroborated a 2015 affidavit by the Nigerian Army that they were not in possession of then candidate Buhari’s certificate. So obviously, General Muhammadu Buhari lied under oath. He committed perjury.

If General Buhari thinks he has an attack dog in Louis Odion, I urge him to have a rethink. What he has is a little domestic kitten, who is eager to fatten up.

Mr. Odion says Mr. Abubakar is “super corrupt” and that he laundered €150 million. Even the paramilitary wing of the All Progressives Congress (a.k.a EFCC) has not accused Atiku Abubakar of such or anything close to such.

Yes, they brought charges against his son-in-law and lawyer, but these charges were not for laundering €150 million. The charges are laughable political motivated charges. In proof of this, I remind Nigerians of how they lied that money had been laundered to former President Obasanjo, until Babalele Abdullahi produced evidence to show that they lied and his donation went through normal banking channels.

But if Mr. Odion is so set against money laundering, why is he silent about Bola Tinubu, who was caught on camera, by drones, ferrying money to his house in bullion vans on the morning of the last presidential elections, in contravention of the Money Laundering Act, 2011, and then went on to boast about it the next day on Channels TV?

Who is super corrupt between an Atiku, who is the most investigated politician in Nigeria, without anything being found against him, and a General Buhari, who has loaded his cabinet with corruption gold medalists?

If Mr. Louis Odion says General Buhari has integrity, then I have the following questions for him:

Why was Goje’s ₦25 billion corruption case dropped?
Who owns the Ikoyi apartment billions?
When will @AishaMBuhari’s ADC be tried?
Who reinstated and double-promoted Maina?
When will the NNPC $25 billion scandal be investigated?
Where is ₦40 fuel?
Where is ₦1 equal to $1?
Where is subsidy removal?
Where is Boko Haram’s defeat?
Where is uninterrupted power?
Where is the promised security?
Where is the promised refinery?
Where are three million jobs annually?
Where is no foreign medical treatment?
Where is ‘we will not tolerate corruption’?
Where is ‘I belong to everybody and I belong to no one’?

If you say the DEVIL is a LIAR? What would you say about General Buhari? Satan is Buhari’s apprentice in lying.

As for Louis Odion, I would not take such a person seriously. Google his 2017 article “PMB, Atiku And Illusion Of Party”.

In that piece, Louis Odion praised Atiku to the moon and back and ridiculed Buharists (as he called them). Below is an excerpt from the piece:

“Put together, the tribe of Buharists are free to continue to live in denial. Though they may be unwilling to admit it, Atiku already scored the preliminary strategic point: framing the 2019 debate within APC and baiting Buhari to declare his stand.”

Today, he is singing a different tune. Why? People like Odion are what Warri people call ‘anywhere belle face’!

Reno Omokri is the bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years, and other books.