The Special Assistant on New Media to President Muhammadu Buhari, Lauretta Onochie, Thursday, equalled the Biblical Peter’s three times ignoble denial of not being a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
”I am not a member of APC,’’ Onochie, who appeared before the Senator Kabiru Gaya, APC, Kano South-led Senate Committee on INEC, for screening as a National Commissioner, denied her party three times just Peter denied his Master, Jesus Christ three times.
She told lawmakers that she stopped being a card-carrying member of APC in 2019, two years ago and almost soon as President Buhari was re-elected for the second term.
This is as Premium Times stumbled on a court document that reveals how Onochie proudly declared her membership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Straightnews understood that Onochie arrived at the venue knowing the odds she would be up against when she appeared before the Senate Screening Panel.
According to Premium Times, Ms Onochie, currently the Personal Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Social Media, also confirmed in the document obtained by PREMIUM TIMES on Friday, that she is into active politics.
She also described herself as a “volunteer at the Buhari Support Organisation (BSO)”, a vibrant network of Mr Buhari’s staunch political supporters since the 2015 elections.
The document, which is her statement on oath filed in a pending suit, further confirms her widely known unapologetic partisanship, which has sparked public outrage against her recent nomination by Mr Buhari as a national commissioner of INEC.
She filed the statement on oath as part of a libel suit which she instituted at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, Abuja, in 2016.
In the suit marked CV/852/16, Ms Onochie seeks N1 billion in damages against Emeka Ugwuonye, whom she accused of defaming her by referring to her as a trafficker of young girls for international prostitution, in a Facebook post of January 21, 2016.
The suit was amended and refiled on March 8, 2017.
Even without being prompted Onochie herself brought up the allegation of her membership of the ruling APC admitting her romance with Buhari’s campaign organisation working for the election victory of President Buhari in 2015 before being rewarded with a portfolio as one of his aides on social media against an affidavit dated 30th June 2021, she swore to at an FCT High court, and admitting her membership of Buhari Support Organisation and the APC.
However, the affidavit she swore to last month suggested otherwise wherein she confirmed that she is still an active member of APC Onochie’s support for Buhari was still quite visible in many of her post on social media in 2020.
Onochie arrived at the Senate wing of the National Assembly at about 11 am; accompanied by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly matters (Senate), Senator Babajide Omoworare.
Soon after she was immediately ushered into the office of the Chairman of the Senate Committee on INEC, Senator Kabri Gaya.
Moments after, Onochie re-emerged from behind closed doors and headed to Hearing Room 211 new venue for the screening exercise after the initial venue was changed.
Reacting to the development, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Thursday chided Presidential aide and Independent National Electoral Commission INEC commissioner designate, Lauretta Onochie for denying her membership of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Onochie while appearing before the Senate yesterday for screening, said she resigned her membership of the APC in 2019.
The PDP in a reaction through its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan said, “Nigerians were amused to watch Onochie, a nationally known APC front runner, as she spewed falsehood before the Senator Kabiru Gaya-led Senate Committee on INEC in denial of her membership of the APC.
“With her lies, Lauretta Onochie, a die in the wool APC member, whose name appears as number two on the ward four registers of the APC in Aniocha Local Government Area of Delta State, has further demonstrated her lack of integrity to be trusted with the position of a national commissioner in INEC.”
Ologbondiyan added that Lauretta Onochie “in her escapade in the Senate, may have forgotten that the lawmakers and Nigerians, in general, are aware of her subsisting oath filed in a pending suit in court affirming her membership of the APC, which she further reinforced and adopted under cross-examination in the same matter very recently.”
“With such proclivity to desperate denials in the face of the truth, allowing Lauretta Onochie, anywhere near INEC, would pollute the commission as well as the conduct of elections by the commission.
“Now that the facts of Onochie’s partisanship have been further laid bare before the Senate, the PDP urges the Senator Gaya Committee on INEC to stand on the side of the constitution and the sanctity of our electoral process by out rightly rejecting the nomination of Onochie as INEC Commissioner.”
