Bayo Onanuga, a media aide to President Bola Tinubu, has said presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi and his “Obidient” supporters don’t want the success of Mr Tinubu’s government.

“You can even see when people are talking about the naira, some people are just happy that the naira was going downhill,” Mr Onanuga said in an interview on Mic On, published on Friday. “And so I said, you can trash them. People who were saying so are members of the Obidient Movement.”

Mr Onanuga accused Mr Obi of being quick to speak on bad developments in the country but never giving Mr Tinubu credit for good developments.

“Of course, it’s clear they want Tinubu to fail. Everything the government has done, even Peter Obi himself, read his tweets. When the government has done something good, he will never comment about it. But when it is bad news, he will quickly tweet,” Mr Onanuga said. “So you can see a deliberate attempt to denigrate the government to make it black all the time, that it is not doing well, the government is a failure.”

He added, “It’s too early to even say so. Tinubu has a four-year mandate that just started and I am very sure that they will be shamed by the time this man finishes his term.”

Mr Obi emerged third in the election after the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar. He has criticised Mr Tinubu’s government over economic hardship and insecurity in the country.