Peter Obi vs Bayo Onanuga: Why a Fraud-Alleged Propagandist Cannot Judge a Proven Reformer
By Maazi Ezeoke, Abuja
Bayo Onanuga’s vicious portrayal of Peter Obi as a “wandering politician,” “abysmal failure,” and “copycat” thinker unfit to lead Nigeria is not the work of a principled journalist. It is the desperate outburst of a man whose own record at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), marred by staff accusations of fraud, incompetence, and hypocrisy, strips him of any moral authority to critique anyone’s leadership.
Appointed NAN’s Managing Director in 2016 for a three-year term ending May 25, 2019, Onanuga faced not just political opposition to his reappointment, but a full-scale revolt from his own workers. In a May 23, 2019 letter titled “SAVE NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA (NAN) FROM EMINENT COLLAPSE: Please probe the Agency now,” four unions, NUJ, AUPCTRE, RATTAWU, and SSACGOC didn’t mince words. They branded him “incompetent in managing the affairs of the agency” and “the worst and most corrupt manager in the history of the agency,” demanding ICPC and EFCC investigations into his tenure.
The charges were specific and damning. Unions alleged massive diversion of government revenue through NAN Bizcom, operated via a separate account bypassing the Treasury Single Account (TSA), with funds “converted to personal use by the MD and his cronies.” They accused him of pocketing millions donated by NNPC, Dangote, and others for NAN’s 2018 40th anniversary after sacking the celebration committee and failing to account for the money. Even worse, while he booted two journalists for fake reports “without due process,” NAN under his watch faced a ₦500 million libel lawsuit over a defamatory story against a former NEMA boss published without the due process he denied others.
This is the man now presuming to lecture Peter Obi on “leadership pedigree”? A manager whose own staff begged the federal government to rescue his agency from “eminent collapse” has no standing to call anyone a failure.
Consider Obi’s actual record as Anambra governor, which Onanuga dismisses as “abysmal.” Over eight years, Obi cleared fiscal arrears, left savings rather than debt, built over 900 kilometers of roads including 28 bridges, constructed Anambra’s first secretariat complex, and secured World Bank funding for erosion control while accrediting 12 health facilities where none existed before. Anambra pioneered poverty mapping and aerial urban planning for its major cities. If prudent governance in a “small state” is failure, what term reserves judgment for national collapse?
Onanuga’s “wandering politician” slur fares no better. Obi’s moves from APGA to PDP to Labour to ADC reflect not opportunism, but insistence on platforms aligning with reform over godfather control. He fled APGA’s internal sabotage, rejected PDP’s cash-and-zoning primary farce, energized Labour with youth support, and now builds a broader coalition via ADC. In Nigeria’s transactional party system, this is principle, not wandering.
The 2023 election attack, “bitter about coming third” despite “empirical analyses” proving he couldn’t win, is equally hollow. Obi secured 6.1 million votes amid documented collation irregularities, result transmission failures, and violence that international observers flagged. Labeling South East votes “anomalous” while ignoring unanimous northern tallies for APC candidates exposes selective outrage. His fight is for electoral integrity, not personal entitlement.
Onanuga’s mockery of Obi citing “books, professors, and other nations” reveals anti-intellectual panic. No leader succeeds in isolation. Singapore adapted global models, China pivoted from Soviet planning, America’s founders benchmarked antiquity. Obi advocates intelligent adaptation, not blind copying, a nuance lost on sloganeers fearing data-driven accountability.
Worst is Onanuga’s praise of Tinubu’s “homegrown solutions” that have delivered mass suffering. Far from a “restructured economy,” Nigerians face a naira at N1,430/$ after 6.43% yearly depreciation, IMF-projected 37% inflation in 2026, and fuel prices up over 400% post-subsidy removal without safety nets. Foreign reserves may hit $51 billion per CBN projections, but from a depleted base amid oil dependence. Lagos-Calabar and Sokoto-Badagry highways remain contractor announcements tangled in lawsuits, not transformative infrastructure. Tax “harmonization” in a low tax-to-GDP nation risks extortion without governance reform hardly the “prosperity” Onanuga promises.
Tinubu’s “effective leadership” and “strategic reforms” sound impressive until measured against lived reality: market women crushed by costs, youth despair, 40%+ poverty rates. Onanuga’s blinders mirror the hypocrisy of a man who allegedly hid corporate donations while preaching transparency.
The “madman in Onitsha” slur and prophecy of Obi as Atiku’s 2027 running mate expose gutter instincts and wishful thinking. Obi’s ADC move signals coalition-building beyond old binaries, powered by awakened youth demanding accountability. Onanuga’s role? Defending failure with venom.
Nigeria stands at an inflection point. It cannot let fraud-alleged propagandists whose own agencies teetered on collapse, define competence as noise, integrity as naivety, or ideas as threats. When NAN staff called Onanuga history’s “worst and most corrupt manager,” they didn’t just describe a boss; they disqualified a judge.
Peter Obi’s trajectory from Anambra’s prudent revival to national reform symbol, threatens not because he wanders parties, but because he wanders toward accountability in a system rigged for plunder. Onanuga’s attacks must be rejected not for Obi’s sake, but for Nigeria’s: we need auditors who open books, not the audited writing hit pieces. Only then can true homegrown solutions, honest, data-driven, compassionate take root.
