Bayo Onanuga’s Slimy Mud-Bath

 By Ochereome Nnanna

For his own purposes, President Bola Tinubu had delayed the appointment of Bayo Onanuga as one of his spokesmen. Ajuri Ngelale, broadcast journalist and Ogoni chief, was presented to give Tinubu’s media office a handsome, though unsmiling face.

*Peter Obi 

Many commentators were relieved that elements like Bayo Onanuga, Dele Alake and Festus Keyamo would not be brought to irritate the nerves of decent Nigerians with their tawdry, noisy and cheap propaganda antics which we saw during the campaigns for the 2023 general elections in Tinubu’s camp. This feeling was further reinforced when Alake was posted to the Solid Minerals Ministry and Keyamo taken to Aviation.

However, Onanuga surfaced as a spare tyre presidential spokesman. I immediately knew his major assigned role: cheap, swinish propaganda, especially against the ethnic group that has fiercely resisted Tinubu’s wholesale capture of Nigeria: Ndi Igbo of the South-East. The Igbo residents of Lagos make up, at least, 30 per cent of the population of the city-state and have a commanding presence in its economy, especially commerce and industry.

Tinubu considers them an obstacle to his political aspirations. Sure, Asiwaju’s political platform in Lagos has its fair share of Igbo adherents, as should be. That is where you see the likes of Ben Akabueze, Joe Igbokwe and others, who have been with him almost since 1999. But majority of Ndi Igbo have been pro-Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, both in Lagos and nationally. Their sons, such as the late Dr Alex Ekwueme, were co-founders of the party.

Tinubu has managed to swallow the vast majority of the Lagos Yoruba opposition elements into his political family. He has not succeeded in the same fashion with the Igbo residents of Lagos. Ndi Igbo are far more politically-discerning and consistent than they are given credit for. Except for recent years when the PDP lost its appeal and Igbo politicians started seeking refuge elsewhere, Ndi Igbo followed the PDP because of its ideological promise of power sharing and rotation which they believed would favour them one day. PDP is dying because they abandoned their own cherished charter of equity when it was the turn of the South-East to benefit.

After using several failed stick and carrot measures to bend Igbo voters to himself, Tinubu unleashed Joe Igbokwe on his kinsfolk in Lagos. The more he attacked them the higher he grew in the hierarchy. The Tinubu political parties started deploying hoodlums to predominant Igbo neighbourhoods to disrupt elections and prevent his loss of power.

On February 25, 2023, Tinubu’s worst nightmare came true. The Labour Party, with Peter Obi as its presidential candidate, achieved the unthinkable by defeating Tinubu in Lagos during the presidential election! The Obidients Movement, a coalition of Nigerians from all ethnic backgrounds mostly from the South and Middle Belt, dethroned Tinubu in Lagos. The Yoruba elements who were tired of Tinubu’s grip on Lagos, played the decisive roles in that Movement to produce that historic outcome.

For the Governorship election, the Tinubu camp went into war mood. They literally entered the trenches. Nothing was spared to make sure that Tinubu’s power over the Lagos honeypot remained in his grasp. That was when elements like Onanuga were retained to man Tinubu’s propaganda arsenal. Onanuga has a track record of media trench warfare which he garnered from the military transitional political era. He had also used this gun against Tinubu. But towards his old age, he realised he could not beat them, so he joined them.

The main purpose of Bayo Onanuga’s swinish anti-Igbo rhetoric is to foment crisis and violence between the Yoruba and Igbo in and around the Lagos areas, in the evil belief that such a bloody confrontation will devastate Igbo lives and property and end their perceived threat against Tinubu’s political empire.

Each time Tinubu’s administration is threatened with strikes or mass actions, Dele Alake and Bayo Onanuga would invoke the name of Peter Obi and the Obidients Movement as the instigators. Sometimes they couch it in more incitingly terms by dragging in the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, to make it generate more traction of hatred, especially in the Islamic North. We saw that during Organised Labour’s first move for a mass action after the “subsidy is gone” outing of Tinubu as president.

This cheap but incendiary propaganda bombast emerged after the #EndSARS violence in October, 2020 that culminated in the Lekki Toll Gate shootings. A civilised, well-organised protest by Nigerian youth from across the divides was quelled with kinetic military firepower by Muhammadu Buhari at the request of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. Hoodlums quickly hijacked the action, targeting Lagos government property, APC politicians, the police and businesses for burning, looting, killing, maiming and vandalisation.

Though Sanwo-Olu’s government was very conciliatory to bring down tensions, Tinubu’s group blamed IPOB and Ndi Igbo. Only the timely intervention of Pa Ayo Adebanjo’s Afenifere and other Yoruba elements of goodwill prevented armed attacks on Igbo Lagos residents and the unforeseeable consequences that could have followed. Onanuga and his paymasters believe the only way they can hope to continue ruling Lagos is by targeting Ndi Igbo, knocking down their votes and threatening them with property confiscation and genocide.

Ndi Igbo have made it abundantly clear that they will not participate in the impending protests. Some see it as a way of protesting the outcome of the 2023 presidential election. Others simply want to avoid being spuriously accused and victimised by their enemies such as Onanuga and his paymasters. But Onanuga keeps threatening them with “treasonable felonies”. Ndi Igbo and Peter Obi are being deliberately scapegoated for a mass action they have already chosen to boycott.

Onanuga and his paymasters should be very careful. It is unwise to play with fire because it burns. There can never be winners in ethnic wars; only losers.

A word is enough.

*Nnanna is a commentator on public issues