The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has launched a blistering attack on Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, describing him as the most opportunistic and inconsistent politician in Nigeria’s history.
Onanuga’s comment came after Obi hinted during a television interview that he could defect from the African Democratic Congress (ADC) if the party’s internal processes were compromised.
Reacting on X after Obi’s appearance on Arise Television’s Prime Time on Monday, Onanuga wrote: “Peter Obi, the peripatetic, opportunistic and inconsistent politician ever to operate in Nigeria hints that he may leave the ADC, the way he left APGA, PDP and Labour. Listen to him.”
In the interview that triggered Onanuga’s reaction, Obi defended his history of party defections, arguing that each exit was driven by principle rather than opportunism, and made clear he was prepared to move again if necessary.
“I don’t have long time in politics, if I have to move twenty times, I will do it. I cannot be talking about change, I cannot be talking about something new, you cannot use the process of yesterday to build tomorrow,” he said.
Obi attributed his departure from the Labour Party to deliberate sabotage by those who wanted him trapped in a crisis-ridden party.
“They put fire in the house and they were shocked that I was able to escape, they thought I would be there for the fire to burn me. When I now escape they will now say Peter Obi cannot stay to put out the fire which they put,” he said.
On his current ADC membership, Obi acknowledged that some of those he had left behind in other parties were now his colleagues in the ADC, adding that their present conduct is what matters to him.
“What is important is not what people were yesterday, it’s what they are today. I am in ADC with the same people, and I can tell you, some of whom I left in PDP and other parties but we are going through the same process, if that process is again compromised, I will speak out,” he said.
The former Anambra governor asserted that integrity in political processes is non-negotiable for him, insisting that, “If I have to move twenty times, I will do it. You cannot use the process of yesterday to build tomorrow.”
