by Adeola Balogun

Social media was rife with serious allegations yesterday against President Jonathan’s Special Assistant on New Media, Reno Omokri.

It has been claimed that Mr. Omokri created a document falsely linking  the recently suspended Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, to the activities of extremist group, Boko Haram.

Omokri is said to have hidden under the identity of someone named “Wendell Simlin,”and sent around the document which claimed that Sanusi had something to do with the recent increase in violence in the North-East.

Attempts made to reach Mr. Omokri for comments on the allegations levelled against him have proved futile.

According to Sahara Reporters:

Posing as “Wendell Simlin,” Mr. Omokri circulated a Word document linking the former CBN Governor to the recent attacks. The ruse was however uncovered when some Internet-savvy Nigerians traced the IP address of the source document and it turned out that it had been authored and circulated by Mr. Omokri.

This scandal, the latest in a series of ethical and corruption issues rocking the Jonathan administration, set Twitter on fire today. Outraged Nigerians called for Mr. Omokri’s sack. The timing of Mr. Omokri’s fraudulent act is particularly insensitive, with many commentators questioning why a member of President Jonathan’s inner circle would seek to capitalize on the blood of slaughtered innocent children by forging documents to implicate a perceived “enemy” of the Jonathan administration.

Mr. Omokri’s callous forgery began to unfold today at about 11.54 a.m. (Nigerian time) when certain media outlets and editors received an email from one Wendell Simlin ([email protected]) with the headline “Increased Tempo of Boko Haram/Terrorist Activity in the Wake of the Sanusi Saga”.

The email included a Word document which sought to use spurious circumstantial evidence laced with a heavy dose of innuendo to suggest that the renewed Boko Haram attacks in the Northeast were linked to Mr. Sanusi’s recent suspension as CBN governor.

Curiously, the document also contained attacks on Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, the father of the jailed Christmas Day Underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Mutallab.

Several tech-savvy individuals tried to ascertain who the author was and why such critical information was emerging from a “strange” and unknown name. The investigations turned up the following evidence:

1. They found a Wendell Simlin on Facebook with only one photo. That photo had Mr. Reno Omokri in it. While the photo has since been deleted, a screenshot was taken before the deletion and it is hereby published.

2. Further circumstantial evidence, such as friendships on Facebook, including ‘liked’ pages, strongly linked the account of Mr. Simlin to Mr Omokri. Some Internet investigators also discovered that there was a lot of interaction linking the “shadowy” Mr. Simlin to Mr Omokri as far back as 2010.

3. A check of the IP address from which the email was sent indicated somewhere around the Kubwa area in Abuja with the IP address of 41.78.81.189.

4. But the most damning evidence was found in the Word document “Simlin” sent out as news, which had the author’s name as Reno Omokri. Those who received the original email have also done a check and confirmed that Mr. Omokri’s name was on it. Investigations further confirmed the person who saved and edited the document to be Mr. Omokri. Both screenshots are reproduced here.

Photos below: