- The presidential aide noted that Peter Obi was first presidential candidate to ever play ethnic, religious card.
- Bayo Onanuga stated that Obidients are happy about naira crash
Bayo Onanuga, special adviser on information and strategy has scolded Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections for inflaming religious and ethnic issues to push his political ambition.
Onanuga spoke when he appeared on ‘Mic On podcast’, a programme hosted by Seun Okinbaloye, a journalist with Channels Television.
TheCable understands that President Bola Tinubu on September 23, 2022 explained that he picked Shettima as his running mate based on his character and background.
“My intention is clear, not on religiosity. My intention is to develop this country to bring prosperity and have better qualifications, better track record, better exposure, better vision than any of my mates,” Tinubu said.
Onanuga added that his principal did not choose his running mate because he was a fellow Muslim.
“If Asiwaju (Bola Tinubu) had done that, we would not have lost Lagos. (Muslim-Muslim ticket) was not religious. Muslim-Muslim ticket did not even win him massive votes; let’s say in Borno where his deputy came from. The man he picked as his VP, he believed that Shettima had the qualities to support him or to be his Vice President. That is why he picked him. He was not looking at religion,” Onanuga said.
“What I know about the campaign of Obi was that for the first time in a very long while in our country, we had a candidate who was inflaming ethnic passions. And that was the way the election went at that time. He was inflaming ethnic passions, religious passions, bringing two dangerous things to our politics – ethnicity and religion. That is what he did. And those things were dangerous to our Nigerian politics.”
He wondered why supporters of Obi were saying that he won the presidential election after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) revealed that the Labour party aspirant emerged in third place at the poll behind Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“Of course, it is very clear unless people are not acceptive, up till now, some are still writing that Bola Tinubu stole the presidency, and some people are saying that the man who came third actually won the election, and they are very unapologetic about that,” Onanuga said.
“How could somebody who came third how could he have won that election?
Onanuga also added that the supporters of Obi in the 2023 elections are desperate to see the downfall of the President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
“You can even see when they were talking about the naira, some people were just happy that the naira was going downhill, and you can trace them, people who are saying so are members of the Obidient movement.
When asked if he believed the Obidient movement wanted the Tinubu government to fail, Onanuga said, “Of course, it is clear.”
The presidential aide also said Obi never commends the government when it does something good but very quick to tweet when it was about something bad.
He claimed that Peter Obi and his supporters’ actions were a deliberate attempt to denigrate the government and paint it all black at all times.
“Even Peter Obi himself, read his tweets, when the government has done something good, he will never comment about it, but when it is bad news, quickly he will tweet, so you can see a deliberate attempt to denigrate this government, to paint it black all the time that he (Tinubu) is not doing well, he is a failure and I’ve said it is so early to even say so, he added.