Emulate ‘Truthful’ Pastors Like Osinbajo, Adesina, Garba Shehu Tells Omokri

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, has dismissed allegation made against him by a former presidential aide, Reno Omokri.

Omokri had accused Shehu of being an AGIP – an unprincipled person ready to serve `Any Government In Power’.

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According to Omokri, Garba Shehu criticized President Muhammadu Buhari (his current principal) while he served as presidential aide under former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

“Only a shameless character like Garba Shehu, who worked as SA Media in the PDP Government of Obasanjo can turn around today to now insult the same Obasanjo under whom he served for the same Buhari that he once attacked when he was in the PDP. People whose loyalty can be bought,” Omokri wrote on Twitter

“Can you imagine this Any Government in Power (AGIP) character called Garba Shehu attacking me? I can NEVER be bought like you. Insult Buhari for PDP one day, insult PDP for Buhari the next. It is shameless political prostitutes like you that make decent people run from politics!”

But reacting on Sunday, Shehu in in a write-up titled; `The Real Price of Change the Change’’ campaign (2)’, said he cannot be AGIP by any standard.

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He said he was invited to serve the current Buhari administration as one of the two spokespersons of the government, and he subsequently pledged 100 per cent loyalty to the government.

The presidential aide advised Omokri to respect his “pastoral calling” and stop lying against him.

He said that he had known and worked with ‘truthful pastors” such as Pastor Emeka Izeze, Pastor Ifeanyi, Pastor Segun Babatope and lately Femi Adesina and Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.

“For those Reno tried to mislead, yes it is a fact that I worked in the media office of a PDP administration,” Shehu said.

“Not for five years as the new-day pastor published but only for six months at which point it was announced on NTA news, to my surprise, that my letter of resignation had been accepted when I hadn’t written any.

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“I learned of course that I was fired because the head of the country at that time, who believed that every published criticism was sponsored by an insider, read the weekly magazine, The News, and didn’t like what was written about him.

“Pastor’ Reno lied by calling me an AGIP – The period he was referring to was one in which my boss ran into bad political weather and some of us around him were scapegoated.

“I was locked in DSS detention many times, my houses in Kano and Abuja broken into and valuables, including cash, some of which were never returned, were seized.

“I was going to court for two years and for the most part of which I didn’t have a passport.

“In the course of that trial, the judge presiding called back my lawyers, Niyi Akintola, SAN and Rickey Tarfa, SAN, after an adjournment to say that ‘I didn’t mean that he should be kept in DSS detention. I said he should be taken to Kuje Prison’, and that’s where I was kept.

“Under detention in the DSS I was stripped down to the pants and photographed head to toe. All that didn’t make one to capitulate.

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“When they lost to Muhammadu Buhari in the party primaries, the candidates in that race, Gov. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, Waziri Atiku Abubakar, Rochas Okorocha and Sam Nda-Isaiah surrendered their media assets to the winner who had the grace to ask me to lead the media team.

“When we won, he (then President-elect Buhari) invited me to serve as one of his two spokespersons and I pledged 100 per cent loyalty to him and that’s where I am. This cannot be AGIP by any standards.

“Reno should stop lying, if only to help the pastoral calling to retain its good name. Otherwise he should quit the ministry.’’

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