Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has criticised former Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, over comments made during his recent interview on Channels Television, accusing him of distorting facts about his political journey and the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.
In a statement posted via his X handle on Monday, Onanuga said he stopped watching Obi’s interview after about 30 minutes, describing it as a failed attempt to revive what he called the former Anambra State governor’s “ebbing 2027 presidential ambition.”
Responding to Obi’s claim that his movement across political parties was no different from President Bola Tinubu’s political career, Onanuga argued that Tinubu had remained consistent within Nigeria’s progressive political bloc since joining partisan politics in the early 1990s.
According to him, Tinubu began his political career in the Social Democratic Party (SDP), later joined the Alliance for Democracy (AD), before helping to establish the Action Congress (AC), which later became the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and eventually played a central role in the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Onanuga maintained that Tinubu’s political transitions were products of mergers and ideological continuity rather than defections between rival political parties.
He contrasted this with Obi’s political journey, noting that the former governor was elected under the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) before defecting to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), where he became Atiku Abubakar’s running mate in the 2019 presidential election.
According to Onanuga, Obi later left the PDP for the Labour Party ahead of the 2023 election and has now aligned himself with the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), after participating in the African Democratic Congress (ADC) coalition.
He accused Obi of repeatedly abandoning political parties instead of rebuilding them whenever they encountered internal crises.
Onanuga also criticised Obi’s continued insistence that he won the 2023 presidential election, despite the Supreme Court’s judgment affirming President Tinubu’s victory.
Referring to Obi’s interview with Channels Television, he said the former presidential candidate failed to acknowledge the election outcome when asked whether he believed he had been rigged out.
While acknowledging that Obi recorded a significant performance during the election, Onanuga insisted that he finished third behind President Tinubu and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
He urged Obi to accept the outcome of the election and move on, arguing that continuing to claim victory three years after the Supreme Court’s decision was unrealistic.
The presidential aide concluded that Obi should stop what he described as the illusion of a victory he never secured.