Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has berated supporters of the 2023 presidential candidate of the opposition Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, claiming that they were the brains behind the planned nationwide anti-hunger protests slated for August 1.
Onanunga alleged that Obi’s supporters were the ones planning mayhem in Nigeria; hence, the former LP presidential candidate must be held responsible for the aftermath.
However, in a statement on his X handle on Saturday, the presidential aide claimed that the organisers of the anti-government protests were the same people who infiltrated the #EndSARS Movement in 2020 to cause mayhem across the country, acting on the instigation of the now-detained leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
Onanuga wrote: “Don’t be fooled: the malcontents planning to stage nationwide protests are supporters of Peter Obi, the failed presidential candidate of the Labour Party. And he should be held responsible for whatever crisis emanates 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.
“#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 by IPOB elements today.
“Two years after ENDSARS, the IPOB and the gullible innocents joined the Labour Party in 2022 to support Peter Obi, 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.
“If they understand 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 Professor 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 dismisses the allegation.
“In the past 24 hours, this faceless X user has been whipping up the gullible to join the protest being planned and also posting the activities of his Messiah, Peter Obi. He retweets Peter Obi often.
“In one of the posts, a video shows a teenager, who is said to be in the North, printing T-shirts emblazoned with “End Bad Government in Nigeria 2024’.
“There is also a retweeted post by Babatunde Gbadamosi, 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.’ The police and DSS ought to have arrested the man for making a brazen threat to political opponents.
“There is ‘General Oluchi,’ a woman who goes 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.
“In a reaction to Oluchi, he 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,” he wrote on X.
The Chronicle NG reports that the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has cautioned Nigerian youth about the uncertain nature of the next protest.
Mrs. Theresa Omaga, the state director of NOA Bauchi State, issued the warning in a statement on Friday in Bauchi State, urging the youth to postpone their planned nationwide protest in August.
She recommended dialogue as a means of achieving peace and genuine engagement with the administration about problems of the youths.
