Your Channels TV interview was a PR disaster, stop denying your 2023 loss — Presidency tells Peter Obi

The special adviser on information and strategy to President Bola Tinubu, Bayo Onanuga, has described Peter Obi’s Sunday interview on Channels Television as a “PR disaster,” saying it did nothing to breathe new life into the NDC presidential candidate’s 2027 ambitions.

In a post on his X account on Monday, Onanuga said Obi had clearly hoped the interview would work in his favour, but the reaction it generated told a different story.

“Having watched Peter Obi’s interview on Channels TV on Sunday for about 30 minutes, I wasted no time tuning off,” Onanuga wrote.

“If the political nomad thought the interview would re-energise his ebbing 2027 presidential ambition, it turned out to be a PR disaster, judging from the spate of reactions to the many lies he referenced.”

Onanuga took particular issue with Obi’s suggestion that his political journey was comparable to that of President Tinubu, after the interviewer pressed him on his movement across multiple parties. The presidential spokesman argued that Tinubu had remained on a consistent ideological path throughout his political career.

“Since he joined party politics in 1991/92, Tinubu has stayed the progressive path all the way,” he said.

“He started with the Social Democratic Party and won an election to the Senate on the party’s platform, polling the highest vote ever by any candidate in the country.”

Onanuga said that when the June 12, 1993, election was annulled, Tinubu stood firm rather than side with the military establishment.

“He didn’t collaborate with the military; he defied the junta, reconvened the National Assembly, joined the protests, went to detention, and when the country became too dangerous, he opted for exile, along with his family, where he continued the struggle against military dictatorship.”

“When Tinubu returned from exile in 1998, he joined the Alliance for Democracy and was elected the governor of Lagos in 1999. The AD, which Obasanjo wanted to decapitate, went into a factional crisis.

“Tinubu still won his 2003 election, his second term, with the INEC-recognised faction.”

Onanuga traced the evolution of Tinubu’s political vehicles — from the Action Congress (AC) to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and ultimately the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013 — arguing that throughout all of this, Tinubu never strayed from his ideological convictions.

“He didn’t jump to the PDP in 2003, after he remained the last man standing, with fellow AD governors swept out of office by President Olusegun Obasanjo’s brazen rigging machine. Instead, he built a new party from the bottom up, which has grown like an oak tree from an acorn,” he said.

Turning his fire directly on Obi, Onanuga contrasted Tinubu’s record with what he described as the NDC candidate’s habit of switching parties for personal gain.

“Tinubu is unlike you, Peter Obi. You were elected Governor under the platform of APGA in 2007.

“You swore with your children and even by the hospital bedside of Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu that you would never leave the party. Not a man of your words, you abandoned APGA after your second term and joined the PDP. You were in the PDP when you ran with the perennial presidential contender and loser, Atiku Abubakar, in 2019.”

Onanuga said Obi went on to join the Labour Party for the 2023 presidential election, where he finished third behind Tinubu and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, before abandoning the party as it descended into a leadership crisis.

“The Labour Party fell into a serious leadership crisis after the election, with campaign funds in your possession not fully accounted for. Instead of waiting to solve the crisis and rebuild it into a formidable group like a good leader would do, you again chickened out,” he said.

“You teamed up with Atiku to hijack the political group called African Democratic Congress, a special purpose vehicle. When you found that you would not be able to clinch the group’s presidential ticket in a free and fair primary election, you didn’t hesitate to jump ship to join the court-registered NDC, promoted by a former governor, Senator Seriake Dickson.

“It is not in doubt that if the NDC fails to deliver what you want, you are not far away from the exit door. You would shamelessly migrate to yet another party. You do not build; you always want to reap where you did not sow.”

Onanuga also turned to the outcome of the 2023 election, accusing Obi of still being in denial about his defeat more than three years after the Supreme Court dismissed his petition.

“Seun gave you a golden opportunity to redeem yourself in respect of the outcome of the 2023 election. You lost, Peter,” he said.

“You didn’t win that election. You came third, and if not for the bloc vote from your ethnic group, you would have ended up a miserable third.

“You did well in the election, no doubt — a politician with no structure in the states, except the noisy followers on X, Instagram and Facebook.

“But I was utterly surprised that more than three years after the Supreme Court threw away your petition, you are still in denial of the loss, and you still nurse the delusion that you won the election, echoing the sentiment of your gullible followers on the streets.

“Mr Obi, it is time you accepted the stark reality of the loss. Stop dreaming of a victory that you never had.”