A claim that Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to the Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has deleted all the posts he made about the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in Nigeria’s 2023 election, Peter Obi, has surfaced online.
Many followers of Obi have circulated the claim on X.
For instance, an X user, @novieverest posted the claim thus:
Wait, Bayo Onanuga deleted all the posts he made about Peter Obi? Why now? A 70-year-old man spent hours deleting his history. Shocking.
The claim has garnered more than 200,000 views with over 1,500 reposts and more than 5,000 likes as of August 17, 2024.
Also, another X user, @TosinOlugbenga posted the claim with a caption that read:
“Bayo Onanuga has finally folded. Deleted all tweets that mentioned Peter Obi. Bayo Folden.”
The claim has garnered over 240,000 views plus over 1,400 reposts and more than 3,400 likes as of August 17, 2024.
CLAIM
Bayo Onanuga deleted all his posts about Peter Obi on X.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is FALSE.
Onanuga had alleged that Peter Obi supporters are behind the just concluded 10-day nationwide protest tagged “End Bad Governance protest”.
In a lengthy post on his X handle (formerly Twitter) on July 20, 2024, Onanuga 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.
Part of his post archived here read:
“Obi should be held responsible for anarchy. 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.”
Following the accusation, Obi through his counsel demanded an apology from Onanuga or he faced a defamation libel lawsuit.
Obi’s counsel described the allegation as a “calculated plot” to demean and embarrass their client, causing significant harm to his reputation and emotional well-being.
The imbroglio has now birthed the claim that Onanuga has deleted all the posts he made about Peter Obi on X but checks by The FactCheckHub indicate the contrary.
The FactCheckHub ran a search on Onanuga’s X account and the result shows that the posts he made criticising Obi and his followers are still on his X account.
For instance, the post where he alleged that Obi supporters were the ones behind the protest can be found here. The one about the allegation that Obi endorsed the protest can be found here, among several others are still on his X account as of August 17, 2024.
THE VERDICT
The claim that Onanuga deleted the posts he made on X about Peter Obi is FALSE; the posts are still available on his X timeline as of August 17, 2024.
Nurudeen Akewushola is a fact-checker with FactCheckHub. He has authored several fact checks which have contributed to the fight against information disorder. You can reach him via [email protected] and @NurudeenAkewus1 via Twitter.
