Reno Omokri says the Mexican Government has formally accepted him as Nigeria’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, ending more than seven months of waiting that had fuelled claims his posting was in trouble. Omokri announced on his X handle on Tuesday that the Chargé d’Affaires of the Mexican Embassy in Abuja, José Manuel Briseño Flores, had delivered Mexico’s agrément to the Director of Protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Babagana Wakil. The approval, according to him, also covers concurrent accreditation to Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, which he will cover from Mexico City.
“To God be the glory,” Omokri wrote, describing himself by his full name, Bemigho Reno Omokri. An agrément is the formal consent a receiving country gives before another state’s nominee can serve as ambassador on its soil. It is not the final step. Omokri must still present his letters of credence to the Mexican head of state, and no date for that, or for his arrival in Mexico City, has been announced.
The road to this point has been long. President Bola Tinubu named Omokri among 32 ambassadorial nominees in a list released on November 29, 2025, as part of a wider effort to fill missions left without substantive heads since the President recalled Nigeria’s envoys in September 2023. Omokri, a Delta State indigene, was nominated as a non-career ambassador.
His Senate screening on December 11, 2025, was not quiet. Senators Adams Oshiomhole and Ali Ndume clashed over whether he should face deeper questioning, before he was cleared under the chamber’s custom of allowing some nominees to “take a bow” and leave. On December 18, the Senate confirmed 64 nominees after the Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by Senator Sani Bello, said it received no petition or adverse security report against any of them.
The opposition saw it differently. The Peoples Democratic Party described the ambassadorial lists as scandalous and accused the administration of placing political loyalty above merit. Omokri, a former aide to President Goodluck Jonathan who backed Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 election, has since become one of Tinubu’s most vocal defenders.
On March 6, 2026, a statement by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, announced the postings of 65 ambassadors-designate. Omokri went to Mexico City, while former Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode was posted to Germany. Many of the envoys moved to their stations, but Omokri’s posting stalled while Abuja awaited word from Mexico.
That silence produced speculation that Mexico had turned him down. Omokri rejected the claim in June on Channels Television’s Politics Today. “Mexico has not rejected me,” he said, attributing the delay to diplomatic procedure and Mexico’s role as co-host of the 2026 FIFA World Cup with the United States and Canada. He added that he was not the only ambassador-designate yet to resume.
The question did not go away. On August 1, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Mexico and Japan were among the countries yet to communicate acceptance of two outstanding ambassadorial appointments, adding that engagement with both was ongoing. Neither the ministry nor the Mexican Government gave any indication that the nomination had been refused.
Counting from his posting, the agrément arrived 228 days later. From his nomination last November, the process has taken almost 11 months.
The mission he inherits handles a modest economic relationship. Data from the United Nations Comtrade database show Nigeria exported goods worth $64.86 million to Mexico in 2024, led by live plants and cut flowers, fertilisers and aluminium. Nigeria’s imports from Mexico were valued at $76.95 million in the same year, giving total trade of about $142 million. Figures differ across datasets, but none places the relationship among Nigeria’s major trading ties.
The Federal Government has signalled interest in growing that figure. In December 2023, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council put exports between both countries at about $94.30 million for 2022, and said it was working with Mexican business groups to expand trade and investment. Its Executive Director, Nonye Ayeni, pointed to cocoa, hibiscus, tin and limestone among Nigerian products with a market in Mexico.
The concurrent accreditation widens Omokri’s brief. Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua have no resident Nigerian mission, so consular, trade and diplomatic matters in all three will run through the embassy in Mexico City.
What happens next depends on scheduling in Mexico City. Once Omokri presents his credentials, he will become the country’s first substantive Nigerian ambassador in Mexico since the 2023 recall. Japan’s agrément for Nigeria’s nominee remains outstanding, according to the Foreign Affairs ministry’s last public update.