The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has criticised Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, over his renewed claim that he won the presidential poll, urging him to accept the outcome of the election and move on.
Onanuga was reacting to Obi’s interview on Channels Television, where the former Anambra State governor maintained that he won the 2023 presidential election but was rigged out. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the presidential aide described the interview as a public relations disaster, accusing Obi of remaining in denial despite the Supreme Court’s judgment affirming the election results.
The presidential spokesman also faulted Obi’s remarks on his political career after the former governor compared his movement across political parties with that of President Bola Tinubu. According to Onanuga, the comparison was inaccurate, arguing that Tinubu has consistently remained within the progressive political bloc since joining partisan politics in the early 1990s. He noted that Tinubu began his political career in the Social Democratic Party, won a Senate seat on its platform, and later remained aligned with progressive parties through subsequent political realignments.
Onanuga further argued that Obi’s political trajectory differed because he had moved across parties with different ideological leanings. He maintained that Tinubu’s political history reflected continuity rather than political nomadism, contrary to Obi’s claims during the interview.
Addressing Obi’s insistence that he won the 2023 election, Onanuga said the former presidential candidate should acknowledge that he finished third in the poll. While acknowledging that Obi recorded a notable performance despite lacking extensive political structures nationwide, he stressed that the election results had been settled by the courts. He said it was surprising that more than three years after the Supreme Court dismissed Obi’s petition, the former governor continued to insist that he was the rightful winner.
The presidential aide urged Obi to stop what he described as living in denial and abandon claims of electoral victory, insisting that the 2023 presidential election had been concluded both politically and legally.
