Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Publicity, has sharply criticised Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, following Obi’s appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics with host Seun Okinbaloye.
In a statement, Onanuga described the interview as a “PR disaster” for Obi’s 2027 presidential ambitions, taking particular issue with two moments from the broadcast – party movement and 2023 Election Result.
On Party Movements, Onanuga challenged Obi’s comparison of his own political trajectory to President Tinubu’s, after Obi reportedly argued during the interview that he had done nothing different from what Tinubu did in building his political career.
Onanuga rejected the comparison, tracing Tinubu’s path from the Social Democratic Party in the early 1990s through the Alliance for Democracy, the Action Congress, the Action Congress of Nigeria, and ultimately the All Progressives Congress — a lineage he characterised as a consistent progressive movement culminating in one party, rather than defections between rival camps.
By contrast, Onanuga detailed Obi’s own party history: elected Anambra governor under the All Progressives Grand Alliance in 2007, a move to the Peoples Democratic Party ahead of the 2019 election (running as Atiku Abubakar’s vice-presidential candidate), a subsequent switch to the Labour Party for the 2023 election, and — after a leadership dispute within Labour Party, moved to the African Democratic Congress and presently NDC, a Party-registered and promoted by former Bayelsa governor Seriake Dickson.
On the 2023 Election Result, Onanuga also took issue with an exchange in which Okinbaloye asked Obi whether he believed the 2023 presidential election had been rigged against him. Obi came third in that election, behind President Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar; his petition challenging the result was dismissed by the Supreme Court. Onanuga argued that Obi’s response — appearing to affirm the rigging claim — reflected a continued unwillingness, more than three years after the court ruling, to accept the outcome.
The remarks arrive amid continuing political positioning ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 general election, with Obi having moved through several political platforms since his 2023 run and reportedly aligning himself with the newly registered ADC before a further shift toward the NDC.
Obi and his allies have previously maintained that irregularities affected the 2023 outcome, a position the Independent National Electoral Commission and the courts have not upheld. TheDiggerNews.com is reaching Obi’s camp for comment on Onanuga’s remarks and will publish any response received.
