Garba Shehu, Reno Omokri in bitter Twitter ‘fight’

The Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, Garba Shehu, and former aide on Digital and New Media to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, have been engaging each other in a bitter Twitter fight since Wednesday, December 23.

The Twitter battle started when Omokri took to his handle and called on President Muhammadu Buhari to either resign or be impeached after his statement that “only God can effectively secure the Nigerian-Niger Republic border.”

Buhari had made the statement on Tuesday, December 22, saying the “1,400 kilometres of border Nigeria shares with Niger Republic could only be secured and effectively supervised by God.”

In the tweet, Omokri said that Buhari had failed in his constitutional duty to secure Nigeria and is now putting the country’s security in the hands of God.

Read also: Buhari loses 100,000 followers on Twitter to Reno Omokri’s #UnfollowBuhari campaign

In another tweet, he said he would give Shehu the sum of “$20,000 to sleep in any troubled Nigerian town like Kware in Sokoto State or Koshobe in Borno State.”

“In any other country, when a President publicly admits that he can no longer police his nation’s borders, he will resign or be removed,” Omokri tweeted.

He posted in another tweet:

“How can a President, whose main job is to protect the territorial integrity of a nation, abdicate that responsibility to God? #Buhari has to go!”

In yet another of his thread backed with a video, Omokri wrote:

“Garba Shehu said Buhari has made Nigeria safer. I vow to pay him $20,000 if he will spend a night without security in Koshobe, or Kware, verified by an independent journalist. I will give the funds to #Dele Momodu when he accepts to go.

“Please retweet until Garba and the @NGRPresident see this #ProveThatNigeriaIsSecure.”

A few hours later, Shehu took to his Twitter handle to respond to Omokri’s challenge. He accused Omokri of using the abduction of Leah Sharibu, who was kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents from the Government Science Girls’ Science Secondary School in Dapchi, Yobe State, in 2018, to solicit for funds from Nigerians and foreign donors.

Shehu posted that if the $20,000 Omokri was offering came from the amounts he collected on behalf of the abducted girl, he would not “touch the money with a mile long pole.

“If this is the money from the collections made in the name of Leah Sharibu, the unfortunate Christian girl stolen by Boko Haram, I won’t touch it with a mile long pole. Please keep your USD20000,” Shehu tweeted.

Again, I Vow To Pay @GarShehu, $20k If He Spends a Night in Kware or Koshobe To Prove His Claim That #Buhari Has Secured Nigeria. It Will Be Paid To Chief @DeleMomodu

Nigerians Please Help Pressure Garba To Walk His Talk and #ProveThatNigeriaIsSecure https://t.co/zUFYd2JLyK

— Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) December 23, 2020

If this is the money from the collections made in the name of Leah Sharibu, the unfortunate Christian girl stolen by Boko Haram, I won’t touch it with a long. Please keep “your USD20000”. https://t.co/zn4NC24L9X

— Garba Shehu (@GarShehu) December 23, 2020

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