The Presidency has dismissed Sunday’s two-hour Channels Television interview with the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Mr. Peter Obi as a ‘PR disaster.’
Channels Television’s programme ‘Sunday Politics’ featured Mr. Peter Obi during which the anchor, Seun Okinbaloye asked Obi various questions, all of which he answered.
However, in a statement, Special Adviser, Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga said Obi failed to energize his presidential ambition during the interview.
According to Onanuga, the two issues that caught his attention for the 30 minutes, which he said he watched, were
Obi’s movement to different political parties and his claim that he won the 2023 presidential election.
Onanuga said Obi was wrong in saying that even President Bola Tinubu also moved from the first political party he joined in 1998 to other parties.
“When Tinubu returned from exile in 1998, he joined the Alliance for Democracy and was elected the governor of Lagos in 1999. The AD, which Obasanjo wanted to decapitate, went into a factional crisis. Tinubu still won his 2003 election, his second term, with the INEC-recognised faction.
“With the AD still in crisis, Tinubu founded a new party, the Action Congress, taking a large number of the AD members to the new platform. Babatunde Fashola, Kayode Fayemi, and Rauf Aregbesola contested on this platform in 2007.
“The AC became Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) for the 2011 election. In 2013, the party entered into merger talks with Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), New Nigeria Peoples Party, a faction of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), and the new Peoples Democratic Party(nPDP) to form the All Progressives Congress (APC),” Onanuga said.
He said Tinubu remained ideologically committed in his political activities and built his present political party, the All Preogressives Congress, APC.
On Obi’s claim that he won the 2023 presidential election, Onanuga maintained that Obi lost, coming third in the election.
“You did well in the election, no doubt- a politician with no structure in the states, except the noisy followers on X, Instagram and Facebook.
“But I was utterly surprised that more than three years after the Supreme Court threw away your petition, you are still in denial of the loss, and you still nurse the delusion that you won the election, echoing the sentiment of your gullible followers on the streets.
Mr Obi, it is time you accepted the stark reality of the loss. Stop dreaming of a victory that you never had,” Onanuga insisted.
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