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Former presidential spokesman Reno Omokri has urged the media to leave him out of the recent sexual allegation raised by senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, against Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
He also narrated how the allegation of sexual harassment against him by the senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, was resolved.
Akpoti-Uduaghan, in 2014, accused Omokri of sexual harassment at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Akpoti-Uduaghan also accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio of sexual harassment during an interview on Arise TV on Friday, February 28, 2025.
The lawmaker accused Akpabio of making sexual advances to her on December 8, 2023, while on assignment in Akwa Ibom State.
Omokri, who served as former President Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesman, said he has been inundated with calls from media organisations in Nigeria to interview him about Akpoti-Uduaghan’s allegations against Akpabio, following his experience with the same accusations.
The former presidential aide, in a statement on Saturday, March 1, vowed not to speak with multiple media outlets on the senator’s allegations against the Senate President.
He wrote: “I do not know if what Senator Natasha Akpoti accused the Senate President of is true, as I was not physically present when the alleged events took place.
“However, I can testify that Senator Natasha Akpoti once had an altercation with me on social media over a post where a woman made advances at me and I rejected her and stated that my wife is a beauty queen and is more than enough for me.
“Apparently the woman is or was a friend of Senator Akpoti. And after I had scorned her friend’s advances, Senator Akpoti accused me of sexually harassing her at Aso Rock Presidential Villa, during a reception held for the visiting Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, when he visited Nigeria between May 4 and May 7 2014.
“Unfortunately for Senator Akpoti, during those dates, I was sent to the United States of America as President Jonathan’s special envoy. I met and was photographed with multiple U.S. officials, including State Department officials, in Washington, D.C.
“I then published a First Class British Airways ticket and my passport (which was a different class of passport from the regular Nigerian passport and requires a special kind of stamp), proving that I was not in Nigeria on the dates Senator Akpoti alleged I sexually harassed her.
“After I published that evidence, Miss Natasha Akpoti, as she then was, deleted every trace of her allegations against me and the video she had made insulting me, my wife and my newborn daughter.
“As I was pondering the next steps to take, a very influential and respectable man from my ethnic nationality, reached out to a prominent Christian clergyman, who mediated between him and I. The gentleman greeted me in my mother tongue, Itsekiri, and was most gentlemanly and expressed regrets over the incident, and I was prevailed on by the clergyman to reach an out-of-court settlement.
“Thereafter, I dropped the matter since my name had been cleared, and the out-of-court settlement was adequate.
“That is the extent of my encounter with Senator Natasha Akpoti. I hope the media can now leave me alone, as I am reluctant to grant any interviews or get entangled in this matter, seeing as I have the highest respect for the man who reached out to me to settle the matter.
“As for the Senate, I have the highest respect and confidence in that institution and its leadership and believe that the right thing to do would be to institute a Senate investigation by the appropriate committee to determine the veracity of the present allegations.”
English (US) ·