The Presidency has accused the 2023 Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Peter Obi, of introducing “two dangerous things” into Nigerian politics in the last elections.
President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, accused Obi of flaming religion and ethnicity during the last elections in Nigeria.
Onanuga declared that Tinubu’s administration is not focused or concerned with Obi and his followers, the Obidients.
Featuring on Mic On with Seun Okinbaloye, the presidential aide assured that Tinubu’s administration remained focused and undistracted.
He said: “As of now, we are busy with governance and we don’t want our attention diverted from the focus of what the government is trying to do. We are very busy, we’re not even looking at them now.
“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 passion and that was the way the election went at that time, he was inflaming ethnic and religious passions, bringing two dangerous things to our politics: ethnicity and religion.
“That was what he did and those things were dangerous to our politics.”
Onanuga also added that the supporters of Obi are desperate to see the downfall of the President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
“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. 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,” Onanuga said.
“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.
“How could somebody who came third how could he have won that election?
“You can even see when they were talking about the naira, some people were just happy that the naira was going downhill. 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.
“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.
