Nigeria’s first official special assistant on New Media, Mr Reno Omokri, son of Late Justice Jean Omokri; a former Justice of the Court of Appeal and Late Mrs Helen Igbene, is a Law graduate and family man, who describes himself as strong, warm and imperfect individual, striving towards perfection. In this interview with SUZAN IRONSI, he clarifies issues on some publicised stories, his experiences and future plans
Why did you choose New Media as a professional tool?
Well, working with Joe Trippi in America, I had no choice but to embrace New Media for political purposes, because Trippi was probably the first person in the world to do that on an organised and successful scale with the Dean Campaign. Previously, I had worked on the emerging online space during the Obasanjo era, particularly in the office of the then vice president, Atiku Abubakar.
You know I had to be strategic. Nigeria’s New Media environment has a lot of professional naysayers. They wait for you to come out with a message just to disagree with you. Even when you agree with them, they disagree with you. They target people with press value so that they make the headlines at your expense. These disagreements, being political in nature, sometimes cross over to the traditional media and could be a source of embarrassment for the principal. That being the case, it was considered prudent to limit exposure to the most strategic platforms where one could have as much control over one’s messaging.
