Lere Olayinka, Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has fired back at Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore, describing him as a “scammer haunted by his own shadow.”

Olayinka was reacting to Sowore’s allegation that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Minister Wike were plotting to assassinate him. In a statement on Saturday, he dismissed the claim as a tactic to draw sympathy and sustain what he termed Sowore’s “life of scams.”

He challenged the activist to produce evidence of any conviction against President Tinubu, instead of what he called reckless allegations.

“Someone like Sowore, who collected over $3 million in 2019 to sell the governorship ticket of the African Action Congress (AAC) in Rivers State and was suspended by his own party for corruption, must have a lot of victims of his scams to contend with,” Olayinka alleged.

He further accused Sowore of misappropriating funds meant for activism and journalism training, including grants from the MacArthur Foundation and money raised during the #EndSARS protests.

According to him, “if there is any threat to Sowore’s life, it must be from those he has scammed or blackmailed, not from President Tinubu or Wike.”

Olayinka also dismissed Sowore’s recent criticisms of Wike over alleged property ownership in the United States, arguing that there was nothing unlawful about the minister’s wife inheriting or purchasing properties abroad.

He described Sowore’s attacks as “the last kick of a dying horse,” insisting the activist was merely trying to play the victim to escape accountability.