The Labour Party has rejected the Presidency’s assertions that its presidential flag bearer, Peter Obi, and his supporters are behind the planned statewide anti-government protest on August 1.
The Presidency described demands for widespread protests using the hashtags #TinubuMustGo and #Revolution2024 as treasonable.
In a lengthy tweet published on his X account on Saturday, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, accused the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi, and his followers of propagating the hashtags, alleging that “they are not democrats but anarchists.”.
“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,” said the presidential aide.
Onanuga, on the other hand, proposed a Save Nigeria Rally from August 1–15, 2024, in response to preparations for statewide rallies on August 1–10 over growing living costs and economic hardship.
He said that people planning the protests were also behind the #EndSARS protests in October 2020, which turned violent.
“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 to this day. 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, #TinubuMustGo, and #Revolution2024. They are not Democrats but anarchists,” he said.
Onanuga alleged that the protest organisers lack the patience to wait for another election in 2027 but instead want to “destabilise Nigeria by staging a civilian coup against President Bola Tinubu.”
In a name-and-shame campaign, the former Chief of the News Agency of Nigeria drew attention to a protest organiser who operates an anonymous X account, whom he said had been enlisting more people to join the exercise.
However, the leadership of the Labour Party has refuted the claims of the Presidency and warned against dragging Obi into the rising tensions of the planned nationwide protest.
Obiora Ifoh, the National Publicity Secretary of the LP, in a statement titled ‘Obi, the Labour Party is not involved in the ‘EndBadGovernance’ protest,’ reiterated that it was wrong of Onanuga to link the LP and its national leader to the proposed ‘EndBadGovernance’ protest.
He said, “We say there is no truth in the tweet. It is just a figment of the author’s imagination. The Labour Party is known for being a very peaceful party, and it has on 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 delusional for anyone to link our supporters to the planned protest. The Labour Party, Peter Obi, and our supporters are not planning any protests.
“It is therefore puerile for the government, or anyone, for that matter, to begin to look for whom to blame for the bad governance witnessed in Nigeria today. Nigeria can still get it right if the right policies are initiated. We also advise that some aides of the Presidency must be cautioned to avoid incendiary pronouncements capable of combusting the nation, all in the name of playing politics.”
In response, Yunusa Tanko, Obi’s campaign spokesman, disputed Onanuga’s claim. Tanko said it is absurd for the Presidency to believe that Nigerians cannot oppose terrible governance unless prompted by the opposition.
He said, “With all due respect, is it Peter Obi who goes to the market to buy a bag of rice and beans? Why are people not being fair to this man? This thing concerns every Nigerian. We are talking about the hardship that is meted out to Nigerians by this government.
“Even they themselves are feeling the pain because distant family members will continue to come to them for money due to the hardship. Is Obi visiting their families to tell them about the rising cost of foodstuffs, including why a bag of rice suddenly rose to N80,000? If they are looking for a dog to give a bad name to hang, it is certainly not Obi.
“They should hold themselves responsible for the situation they put Nigerians in. It has nothing to do with Peter Obi. It is a reaction of the people, by the people, and for the people, which is allowed in a democracy. It is their inalienable right as Nigerians. This allegation is not true, and it is unfair. The APC government should look inward and find who to blame among themselves.”
