A presidential aide, Mr Bayo Onanuga, has accused supporters of Mr Peter Obi, Labour Party’s candidate in the 2023 presidential election, of planning protests across the country.
Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, who was emphatic that Obi’s supporters were planning to stage nationwide protests, said that Obi would be held responsible for whatever crisis that emanated from the action.
“The protest planners are also the same people who were instigated by IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu to launch the destructive ENDSARS protest in Nigeria in October 2020,” Onanuga wrote on his official X account.
“ENDSARS began as a genuine protest by youths against the Police Special Anti-Robbery Squad, notorious for its high-handedness.
“IPOB members planning to extricate the South-East region from Nigeria infiltrated the protest and hijacked it for their own agenda.
“Lagos still bears the scar of the malicious destruction until today,” Onanuga wrote.
He said that two years after ENDSARS, IPOB and the gullible innocents joined the Labour Party in 2022 to support Obi, who he said was a sympathiser of their cause.
“They are the people spreading the hashtags ‘EndBadGovernance,’ ‘Tinubu Must Go,’ and ‘Revolution2024.’ They are not democrats but anarchists.
“They are attempting to call out our people via propaganda because their Messiah, Peter Obi, failed to win the Presidency in the 2023 election.
“As bad losers, they don’t have the patience to wait for another election in 2027; they would rather destabilise Nigeria by staging a civilian coup against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” he said.
According to him, if they understood the meaning of their hashtags, they will realise they are clarion calls for treason; wanting to end an elected government is high treason, wanting revolution is a call for a coup d’etat, which is also high treason.
“I have been on the trail of one of the protest planners, who is nameless but claims to have an internet radio station, PTM100.88 Abuja.
“The anonymous person joined X in August 2022 and has 520 followers today, among whom are FS Yusuf, another rabid Obi supporter, and Prof. Pat Utomi, a Labour Party chief, and a guy on X who goes by the pseudonym Peter Obi’s First Son.
“PTM’s profile image has someone holding the inscription ‘Certificate Forger Not My President,’ with a photo of Peter Obi as an inset. Only Obi’s supporters will be talking about certificate forgery long after the Supreme Court dismissed the allegation,” Onanuga wrote.
He said that in the past 24 hours, this X user had been whipping up the gullible to join the protest being planned and also posting the activities of Obi.
In one of the posts, he said a video showed a teenager, who was said to be in the North, printing T-shirts emblazoned with “EndBadGovernance in Nigeria 2024.”
There is also a retweeted post by Babatunde Gbadamosi, who he described as a failed and frustrated politician in Lagos. In it, he refers to his earlier post urging people “to identify APC members, sponsors, supporters, enablers, thugs, promoters, and appointees.”
Onanuga said the police and DSS ought to have arrested the man for making a brazen threat to political opponents.
He said there was also “General Oluchi,” a woman by the screen name “A Field Marshall of the Han Dynasty.”
“She has been sending out letters of mobilisation. She even pinned a ‘Week 6’ letter urging Nigerians to wake up and take control of their country, using the language of IPOB, Peter Obi, and his supporters.
“Another member of the malcontents is Brother Bernard, also known as Mikael C. Bernard. He is not based in Nigeria because he was once busted over Binance and fraudulent crypto businesses in Nigeria.
“Bernard was the man who once wrote that the naira should go down to zero,” said Onanuga.
In a reaction to Oluchi, Bernard said the protesters should remove the increase in salaries for the armed forces as part of their demands.
“If they want an increment in salary, let them launch their own protest. It is not our job to fight for enablers of evil,” Bernard wrote on X, according to Onanuga.
However, an X user reminded Bernard that according to Nigerian law, men of the armed forces don’t protest.
“Security agents should, by now, begin to interrogate these agents of destabilisation.
“There is no country in the world where people are not going through some economic challenges and where the cost of living is not a major issue.
“No country is immune from economic turbulence at the moment. Civilised and democratic people wait for another election to make leadership changes. They don’t trigger mayhem in their countries by staging protests, the end of which nobody can predict,” said Onanuga.
He added that Nigerian citizens must consider the government’s attitude and concern about the cost of living crisis when deciding whether to join the protests.
“The Tinubu government has not been found wanting in this regard. The minimum wage has been increased by more than 100 percent. Loans are being disbursed to students in tertiary schools.
“A credit corporation has been launched to promote consumption credit. Palliatives, including the latest distribution of 740 trucks of rice to the 36 states and Abuja, are being rolled out.
“Businesses, such as pharmaceuticals, are being assisted. The Federal and state governments are investing heavily in agriculture to produce more food,” he stated.
According to him, the economy is improving, inflation is slowing, the national debt has been reduced in dollar terms, and the FIRS has increased revenue generation to record levels.
“Investors are coming back to our country. Our stock market is the best in the world, with a 33 per cent return on investment.
“President Tinubu has a four-year mandate to run his agenda. Those calling for protest should wait till 2027 to either re-elect him or elect their Messiah, Mr Peter Obi,” said Onanuga
However, the Labour Party, in a statement by Obiora Ifoh, its National Publicity Secretary, has said that the party is known for being peaceful and has, on several occasions, asked its followers to follow peace at all times.
“The attention of the leadership of the LP has been drawn to a tweet from one of the presidential aides, Mr Bayo Onanuga, linking it and its national leader Peter Obi, and very many notable figures in the LP, to the proposed protest.
“We say that there is no truth in that.
“Labour Party is known for being a very peaceful party and it has, at several occasions, asked its followers to follow peace at all times.
“We are not known as a lawless group, as was evident in the aftermath of the last general election.
“It is, therefore, wrong for anyone to link our supporters to the planned protest. Labour Party, Peter Obi and our supporters are not planning any protests,” Ifoh said.