Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga has taken aim at former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi, branding him the most opportunistic and inconsistent figure to have featured in Nigerian political life.
The broadside came in response to remarks Obi made during a television interview, in which he left open the possibility of abandoning the African Democratic Congress should the party’s internal processes be undermined.
Reacting on X following Obi’s appearance on Arise Television’s Prime Time on Monday, Onanuga portrayed the former Anambra governor as a serial defector with a pattern of abandoning political platforms — referencing his exits from APGA, the PDP, and the Labour Party.
In the interview that drew Onanuga’s fire, Obi pushed back against the defection narrative, insisting that each of his departures had been driven by matters of principle. He signalled his readiness to move again if circumstances demanded it, arguing that meaningful change could not be pursued through outdated political methods.
Obi attributed his exit from the Labour Party to deliberate acts of sabotage by internal opponents who, in his telling, engineered a crisis and then criticised him for refusing to be consumed by it.
Addressing his current membership of the ADC, Obi acknowledged that some of those he had parted ways with in previous parties were now his colleagues within the same fold. He said what mattered to him was not people’s political past but their present conduct and commitment to due process — adding that he would not hesitate to speak out, or walk away, if that process were again compromised.
