Reno Omokri: A Desperate Voice in the Social Media Wilderness by Dachem Felix

Born in January 1974 to Helen Bemigho and Justice Jean Omokri.

Beyond this, not much is known about the earlier days of this social nuisance and cyber bug until his sudden but disastrous ascendance to the corridors of power – only in Nigeria.

Reno is a desperado when it comes to attention-seeking, the only thing he knows how to do. Not even his post graduate degree is enough to restore the functional and productive use of his sense since he lost it on the altar of gluttony and eye-service.

Our country, Nigeria is deeply embroiled in one of her worst economic crises since her existence as a nation, and psychopaths like Reno are exploiting the situation through needless controversies.

To confirm how desperate he is in his hunt for controversy, he resorted to picking on a well-respected woman of God by digging out an undated video about tithing, done about a decade or more ago. Knowing the sensitivity of the topic, he harped on it to trend and gather traffic. Unfortunately, some bitter and malicious persons will follow suit and be mischievously swayed in the direction of his flapdoodles.

The subject of tithing has been used by mischief makers to generate flaring controversy in recent times, and Reno is obviously desperate to rekindle the flames of that controversy. He usually uses theological distortions to bamboozle the unread members of the public. Some are even seen praising him as being well-read. But what is well-read about his fallacious, specious, sophistic and misleading submissions?

He said that Malachi 3:11 was used in the agricultural context and that tithers in those days only tithed agricultural produce. But he wasn’t wise, logical or sensible enough to know that that was an agricultural age where the predominant occupation of man was agriculture, and so, tithing was based on the predominant means of livelihood which was agriculture.

Reno queried the King James Version’s rendering of Mathew 23:23, but what about the rendering of the same Scripture in the New Living Translation as follows?

“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things.” Mathew 23:23.
He said his own “Yeshua” not our Jesus, did not tell people to tithe, but what about the above Scripture?

Well, religion is a matter of belief, and so there are those who believe in tithing even if their pastors don’t preach it. No well-meaning church or pastor will force members of their congregation to pay tithe. Even in the same congregation, there are those who pay tithe and there are those who don’t pay tithe, and they still come to church, and no one harasses them. It is their private dealings with God, and not with the church or the pastor.

So, those who don’t pay tithe like Reno should leave the church, pastors and those who pay tithe alone.

Come to think of it: what does Reno represent? What are his antecedents in society? What moral standing does he have to be denigrating the church?
Is it not the same Reno who calls himself pastor, and yet wangled his way into politics when the pulpit seemed not to be paying him as expected?
Is it not the same Reno who is jumping from one political pay master to another in search of breadcrumbs to serve his gluttony?
Is it not the same Reno who served his master Goodluck Jonathan into a disastrous electoral defeat?

Is it not the same Reno who stole the identity of a teenage boy in America to do a public relation stunt in Nigeria? Such a despicable element!
Is it the same Reno who advised his master to buy phones worth N50 billion to farmers in Nigeria? Such a disastrous policy proposal!
Is it the same Reno who insulted Atiku Abubakar while working for Goodluck Jonathan and switched over to work for the same Atiku Abubakar when he led Jonathan into a disastrous defeat?

Is it the same Reno who sang the praises of PDP, claimed to be a card-carrying member of the party, insulted Tinubu and the APC, but has now turned round to sing the praises of the same Tinubu and the APC, just to gain some filthy lucre?

Is it not this Reno who sang the praises of the Hausa Fulani culture and religion and even began to dress like a typical Hausa man, just to gain political relevance?
Is it not the same Reno who speaks from the two sides of his mouth, a rabblerouser and sycophant-in-chief? Such an uncultured and shameless human being.
Is it not the same Reno who abandoned his wife and children in the US just to start another family in the UK with another woman? The most irresponsible depiction of masculinity!
Is it not the same Reno who has been fanning the flames of ethnic and tribal bigotry in Nigeria? Reno would be happier today if some ethnic groups, especially the Ibos, were wiped out. His ethnic rhetoric was flammable enough to engulf the whole country in flames, but for divine intervention.

For the records, the church and pastors are not the problems of Nigeria as Reno, and his ilk would like to have us believe. Christianity or tithing is not the reason for Nigeria’s economic and political woes.

Political charlatans and moral imbeciles like Reno who wangled their ways into corridors of power by crookery were the ones who plunged us into this quagmire. Reno is a political stooge who is being used to sway the attention of the unsuspecting public from holding accountable the real culprits behind the suffering of Nigerians.

He took on the title of a pastor before now. He was also in political power. What has he been able to do with his inconsequential life to better the lot of the common man apart from rabblerousing, inciteful comments and controversy? It is never on record that he has empowered anyone to succeed in life, yet he is recklessly running his loquacious mouth in a desperate and malicious attempt to denigrate a well-respected woman of God and her husband. Those who are impacting people’s lives positively should not be the subject of attack of worthless, empty, malicious and pestilent elements in society.

Reno’s mental health is obviously concerning, but the most unfortunate thing is that he is dragging a whole generation with himself into a social, religious and moral abyss. Having lost the mental capacity for productive economic engagements, he has now honed an ignoble skill for the controversial knowing that controversy is what drives traffic in his new social media lair. Reno is on life support, and it is only by cyber tomfoolery that he can generate enough breath to stay alive.

And to the gullible who follow him, ask yourself? Is the situation of the country any better? He and his fellow politicians that he is ostensibly fighting for, have they been able to turn the economic tides of the nation? Is Reno really fighting for Nigerians or adding to their injuries by mocking their economic woes?

The church is the one bearing the economic and social burdens of the nation. When people are hungry, they run to church; they don’t run to the Aso Rock or to a politician. When they cannot pay their house rent, they run to their pastor, not to their senator. The church is closer to the people and feels their pulses, yet it is the same church and men of God that the malicious and misguided Reno is desperately seeking to undermine and denigrate.

In saner climes, and even in the days of yore when nobler men lived in more moral societies, incurable lunatics found their feet in the correction of the stocks. But human right advocacy and technology, though germane, have left our street, especially the street of social media with yelping psychopaths like Reno prowling and disrupting the peace and stability of society.
Reno should be pitied, not listened to or taken seriously.
Dachem Felix is the National President, Citizens for Progress Network