As political attention gradually shifts towards the 2027 presidential race, the Presidency has turned to Peter Obi’s history of changing political parties, with presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga declaring on Monday that Obi “always want[s] to reap where you did not sow.”
Onanuga, in a post on X reacting to Obi’s Channels Television interview aired on Sunday, said Obi‘s political journey shows a pattern of leaving parties rather than building them, using the criticism to reject Obi’s comparison of his political career with President Bola Tinubu’s and to frame party loyalty as a test of leadership and credibility.
Onanuga rejected that comparison and used the response to defend Tinubu’s political history while questioning Obi’s record of moving from one party to another.
Onanuga said Tinubu had stayed within the same political family since joining partisan politics in the early 1990s. He traced Tinubu’s journey from the Social Democratic Party to the Alliance for Democracy, Action Congress, Action Congress of Nigeria and finally the All Progressives Congress, maintaining that each stage reflected the same political ideology rather than repeated changes of direction.
He recalled that Tinubu remained with the Alliance for Democracy after losing most of its governors in the 2003 elections and later helped establish the Action Congress before it became the ACN. He also pointed to Tinubu’s role in the merger that produced the APC in 2013.
Onanuga said these changes were different from leaving one political platform for another. He maintained that Tinubu stayed with the same political tendency while helping to build new structures from existing ones.
He also referred to Tinubu’s activities after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, saying the President joined the campaign against military rule, faced detention and later continued the struggle from exile before returning to contest for governor of Lagos State in 1999.
Turning to Obi, Onanuga said the former Anambra State governor won office on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance before leaving the party for the Peoples Democratic Party after completing his second term.
He noted that Obi later contested the 2019 presidential election as Atiku Abubakar’s running mate under the PDP before leaving to join the Labour Party ahead of the 2023 election.
Onanuga also referred to the leadership crisis that followed the 2023 election within the Labour Party. He alleged that Obi later aligned with another political group before joining the National Democratic Coalition, which he said had been promoted by former Bayelsa State governor Seriake Dickson.
Based on those political changes, Onanuga concluded that Obi had shown a pattern of leaving parties instead of strengthening them.
“You do not build; you always want to reap where you did not sow,” Onanuga wrote while accusing Obi of seeking ready made political platforms rather than investing in long term party building.
Onanuga also challenged Obi’s position on the outcome of the 2023 presidential election. He said Obi lost the election and should accept the Supreme Court’s judgment, instead of continuing to believe that victory was taken from him.
He referred to Obi’s interview with Channels Television presenter Seun Okinbaloye, where the former presidential candidate was asked if he believed the election had been rigged. Onanuga said Obi’s response showed he still believed he won the poll.
The presidential aide maintained that Obi finished third in the election and urged him to stop claiming victory years after the courts had dismissed his petition.