Lauretta Onochie, Nigeria’s political prostitute at her trade again ~ By Emeka Ugwuonye
I could not hold my laughter a few days ago when I read the string of invectives Lauretta Onochie unleashed on Peter Obi, taunting him and telling him he would never be President of Nigeria. I do not belong to any particular party, though I was impressed by Peter Obi’s efforts in the last election season. So, I do not speak as a defender of Obi, but rather as a person outraged by Lauretta Onochie’s tendency to push her luck ever so inordinately.
Nigerian politicians are a unique breed when it comes to greed, corruption and reckless utterances. So, what is so special about this woman called Lauretta Onochie to warrant any special notice?
First and foremost, let’s look at the logic of her latest utterances. It is totally ridiculous for Ms. Onochie to leave what happened in the last election and try to speak with such certainty about what will happen in the future of Nigerian politics. Nobody knows the future really. So, you cannot tell any candidate that he would never be president of Nigeria. It is not within the realm of rationality to make such utterance. Peter Obi may never be president of Nigeria. But who can tell for sure? After all, who would have known that he could come so close and be the only candidate to win both Lagos State and Abuja? Then why would Ms. Onochie make such pointless and irrational statement? The answer is the purpose of this post.
Lauretta Onochie dwells in mud. She deals in filth and slings shit at people she perceives as opponents of whoever is in power, and she does it in the hope that the man in power would give her an appointment as a reward. For Ms. Onochie, appointment is not what you get out of merit. Rather, it is a reward for abusing the perceived critics of the man in power. She has been out of job for some time now. Desperate to get an appointment, Ms. Onochie mocks and abuses Obi and Atiku in a manner unbecoming of a person that really hopes to hold a public office. That is her petty means of employment. Education, she lacks. Useful qualifications, she lacks. Experience, Lauretta Onochie lacks. The only thing she has in abundance is the ability to mock and to pour vituperations on anyone she thinks has been critical of the man in office.
Unfortunately, in the Nigerian politics of little-mindedeness and vindictiveness, Lauretta Onochie’s means could often be seen to work for her type. She reduces everything to name-calling, mud-slinging and market-women-style trade in verbal abuses. This is how Lauretta Onochie has been. This method worked for her in the past. I am a living example of how she chooses her targets for vile and primitive attacks.
On December 31, 2015, President Buhari had been in office for a few months. The President had his first (and only) meet-the-press session on that day. It was supposed to be an opportunity for the President to tell Nigerians the direction of his policies. Unfortunately, President Buhari bungled the entire affair. Hence, he had only one such meet-the-press event in his entire tenure. On that day, I watched that event from my home in Washington DC. I was keen on listening to the President. As you would remember, I was an avid supporter of Buhari as a candidate prior to 2015. I had reasoned, wrongly as it turned out, that an experienced army general would be more able to address the security challenges of Nigeria than President Jonathan had been. So, I supported Buhari. When I was supporting Buhari, Ms. Onochie had not found an access to the Buhari team. However, despite my support for Buhari during the election, I became disenchanted with his administration early, when he failed to appoint Ministers for several months after assuming office and after he made himself the Minister of Petroleum, a practice President Tinubu has unfortunately continued. So, I was hoping that on that meet-the-press event, Buhari might explain the strange decisions he had made so far.
Related Posts
To my greatest surprise, the meet-the-press of December 2015 was a total fiasco. Buhari displayed extraordinary lack of judgment and leadership that I immediately questioned my own sanity for having supported him. One of the most egregious things Buhari said in the meet-the-press session was his statement that three people then remanded in prison by the courts would not be granted bail. President Buhari stated that El-Zakzaky, Sambo Dasuki and Nnamdi Kanu would not be granted bail. I was shocked, and so were my friends in Washington, that the head of the executive arm of government (President) would dictate what the judicial arm of government (the judges) would do in cases before them. It was irresponsibility at its height for the President to make such a statement without realizing that he was dabbling into the domain of the judicial arm of government and that he was eroding every notion of the independence of the judiciary. Based on this, I made a post on the DPA Facebook platform stating that the President was wrong, that it should be left for individual judges to hear any bail application from these people and decide it on the merits. I made my Facebook post on 1st of January 2016. On that day, I did not know of the existence of anyone called Lauretta Onochie.
On 16th January, 2016, I flew back to Nigeria from Washington. I was held at the airport by the DSS for few hours. As I finally made it to my office, I began to receive notifications relating to something one lady, called Lauretta Onochie, published about me on social media. Apparently, in order to impress Buhari’s team and encourage them to appoint her as Assistant to Buhari, Lauretta attacked me on social media. She accused me of receiving a share of the two billion dollars Dasuki was accused of embezzling. Lauretta Onochie did not know me. She had never met me. However, since I had expressed a critical view over the President’s performance during his meet-the-press session, Ms. Onochie felt that attacking me would be a way of showing Buhari that she could be useful as Assistant on Social Media. I was stunned: I wondered how so desperate a person could be to do what Ms. Onochie did to me. And indeed, attacking me impressed Buhari team and they hired her. So, Lauretta Onochie got her job as Assistant to the President just by attacking me, a perceived critic of Buhari. What happened next will shock you.
I was forced to investigate the background of Ms. Onochie to try to understand this character better. I was shocked by what I saw. She is a decadent soulless charlatan that can do anything and everything just to get an appointment. When some of the things I discovered about her made it to the social media, she sued me for defamation and hired, guess who? She hired Keyamo, another desperado in government, as her lawyer.
Lauretta has lost every appointment that tries to consider merits. She lost her bid to become INEC Commissioner. She wangled her way into the NDDC, only to be forced out before she knew it. In this administration, she has not yet gotten a place. In a desperate move to get an appointment, she went on brazen attack against Peter Obi, just as she attacked me in 2016 in order to get a job. Very soon, she may get an appointment just for the attacks she has carried out.
Unfortunately, in Nigeria, people get appointment for being stupid and mischievous. So, expect Ms. Onochie’s name to appear on the list of appointees soon. But one thing will remain clear. We know, indeed my investigation showed, how much Ms. Onochie was worth in 2016. She was a penniless lady who offered the only natural gift a woman has to the pleasure of the APC political midnighters and Ghana-must-go-bag pushers. She is a kind of general fringe benefit for politicians far away from home. Her tirades and outbursts are things Nigerians should get used to. It works in their brand of politics of human flesh and bottom power. But in the end, we will take another look at the wealth accumulated by Ms. Onochie and we shall demand to know how she got that wealth if not from corruption.
