Sowore called on those behind the petition to take it down as it poses a direct threat to Omokri’s life, his family and his freedom of speech.
The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) and convener of #RevolutionNow, Omoyele Sowore, has condemned in the strongest terms a petition calling on the microblogging app, Twitter to ban Reno Omokri on the platform.
Omokri was a Special Assistant to former Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan.
Sowore called on those behind the petition to take it down as it poses a direct threat to Omokri’s life, his family and his freedom of speech.
Good Nigeria started a petition to Twitter, Inc, Twitter Chief Executive Officer, Parag Agrawal and @BusinessInsider, asking the social media giant to ban Omokri from Twitter & rescind his "Business Insider Influencer of the Year Award."
The petition which had gathered 38,468 signatures by 1:58 pm on Friday followed tweets by Omokri, a former presidential aide, about the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi, whose supporters have tagged themselves ‘Obidients’.
One of Omokri’s tweets said, “While his Obidients are applauding that interview, if you watch it with an unbiased mind, you see that Peter Obi considers himself a pilot and (Rabiu) Kwankwaso (presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party) a mere driver and substitute player. The people of Kano heard that. The North heard that. Other Nigerians heard!
“Kwankwaso bashine Dan takaran shugaban kasa da nake so ba amma shi ba "Direban mota" da yake so ya "tuka jirgin nijeriya" ne ba kaman yadda Peter Obi ya fada yau a Arise.Kwankwaso ya gina abubuwa da yawa har da gina mutane.Jahilci ne a kwatanta shi da Direba mota.”
Reacting to the tweet, the petitioners wrote on Change.org that “Given the historical relationship between the northern and southeastern parts (Peter Obi hails from the Southeast) of Nigeria, both tweets from @renoomokri have a massive risk of inciting ethnic violence in the northern part of Nigeria and subsequent reprisals in the east, especially since Kwankwaso has a huge following in the North and Peter Obi has a large following in the southeast.
“Ethnic violence against the people of eastern Nigeria perpetuated in the northern part of Nigeria was one of the things that led to the Nigerian Civil war. Since then there have been multiple reports of ethnic violence in various parts of Nigeria. A lot of them are targeted at Ibos. In the east, some violence against northerners has occurred too.
“For @renoomokri to make such tweets to his 1.7million followers given the history of Nigeria is not only reckless and dangerous, but it is also extremely callous to try and stoke ethnic violence for political gain. @renoomokri is very knowledgeable about Nigeria's history so he knows this only too well.
“It should be noted that this is not @renoomokri first tweet with the potential to incite violence in the North. Only a few weeks ago, he tweeted images of a Muslim prayer mat and insinuated that haram was being perpetuated by Obi's supporters in the North. This tweet was also dangerous because only on the 12th of May, 2022 a student was burnt to death because she was accused of committing haram in the north.
“@renoomokri should be stopped from continuing to use his Twitter influence to create the risk of ethnic or religious violence in Nigeria.
“Twitter already has a precedent for banning accounts that try to incite violence. They banned Trump!
“We are therefore calling for Twitter to immediately ban @renoomokri from its platform.
“We are also calling on @BusinessInsider to rescind the "Business Influencer of 2022" award granted to @renoomokri. One comment that may result in ethnic violence is more than enough for @BusinessInsider to do this. @renoomokri has made multiple tweets in this regard.
“The risk to human life and property is too great if he remains on the platform and he continues his tweets.”
But Sowore described the petition as a digital resort to mob justice against the personality of Omokri.
“There is a petition circulating on @Change against Nigerian social media personality, @renoomokri. This petition asking @twitter to ban Mr. Omokri are largely signed by @PeterObi supporters. I condemn this digital resort to mob justice by those behind this particular petition.
“It is matter of time before this gets physical and Mr. Omokri gets hurt. This was how Ivory Coast descended into crisis during Mr. Laurent Gbagbo’s re-election in 2010. The rest is now history. I denounce the petition for targeting Reno over exercise of free speech.
“I urge those behind the petition to take it down as it poses direct threat to Reno Omokri’s life, that of his family and his freedom of speech!” Sowore wrote on his Twitter page on Friday.