Former presidential aide, Mr Reno Omokri, has dismissed the suspended Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s denial of the alleged sexual harassment against him as an awkward afterthought that the public should ignore.

Following Akpoti-Uduaghan’s allegation that the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, had sexually harassed her, Omokri rebutted the accusation because she was prone to making false claims, having accused him of the same misdemeanour some time ago.

The senator, representing Kogi Central, responded, insisting that the former presidential aide, indeed, made passes at her during a presidential reception in 2014.

However, in an interview published by an online platform over the weekend, Akpoti-Uduaghan recanted, denying that she ever accused Omokri of sexual harassment.

“I have never accused anyone of sexual harassment apart from Akpabio. I never accused Yahaya Bello of sexual harassment, and I never accused Reno Omokri of sexual harassment,” she told the online platform.

She explained: “I don’t know if you have the screenshot of the text message that I sent. That was the text message that sparked the entire incident. If Nigerians can go back to the post, it was similar to my response to one of his posts on Facebook in 2019 or 2020.

“And what I said here was a conversation that occurred when he was attacking one of my wards, who felt bad. That doesn’t amount to sexual harassment.”
But Omokri, in a statement yesterday, dismissed Akpoti-Uduaghan’s denial as an intensification of falsehood, insisting that the suspended Senator had falsely accused him and subsequently paid substantial monetary compensation.

He stated: “Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, out of the blue and with no apparent provocation, accused me of sexually harassing her on Tuesday, October 12, 2021, via a Facebook post. Two days later, she accused me of the same offence via a video.

“Multiple newspapers and websites published her false accusations, and I am surprised yet not shocked by her current denials.” Displaying several newspaper websites and YouTube links featuring the Kogi legislator’s accusation, the presidential aide mentioned that she also alleged he secured contracts for his girlfriends during his tenure under President Goodluck Jonathan.