The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in last year’s election, Peter Obi, has tackled the presidency for comparing him to a former US President, Donald Trump.
Daily Trust had reported how Temitope Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Bola Tinubu, made the comparison in a post via X.
In the post, Ajayi weighed into the US presidential debate held last Tuesday between Trump, Republican candidate, and Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic candidate.
“Peter Obi is the Nigeria version of Donald Trump. Like Obi, Trump will use the most negative epithets imaginable to describe a country he wants to lead again just to make a point and rile up his base,” he said.
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Reacting, Obi, in a statement on Sunday, through the Peter Obi Media office (POMR) titled: “Why desperate OBI traducers are kissing the dust?”, accused the presidency and its allies of attempting to distort facts in a bid to damage his impeccable image.
Obi’s statement criticized the purported attempts by “desperate propagandists” and their “presidential enablers” to use the American election scenario as a weapon against him.
He described these efforts as not only misguided but also futile in their attempt to undermine his credibility.
The statement signed by Ibrahim Umar, spokesman to the former Anambra state governor, read in part: “Perhaps the most laughable of such delusions is the Presidency’s effort to ridicule Obi by dragging his name into the USA electioneering process, by scandalously linking him with the Republican Party Candidate, Donald Trump.
“We are very much aware of the motive behind these ridiculous comparisons, which is their uncanny way of currying favour so undeserved from the Democrats. Nigerians who mused about the derisory and facetious comparison have tried to ask: ‘Will your calling Peter Obi ‘a Trump’, translate to or mean that Tinubu is Harris’?
“Every discerning mind who wants to compare Obi and Tinubu and attempts to equate them with the two American Presidential candidates, Trump and Harris, knows too well the similarities and parallels in terms of morality, transparency, good-standing antecedents and people-focused policies.
“Rather than strive to market and justify their rusty and anti-people deleterious policies that have put Nigeria and Nigerians in the most horrendous, conditions, they have resolved to convey misleading accounts of our principal’s activities just to distract the credulous public.
“While we understand the frustration of selling a bad product in a competitive market, the FairPlay rule demands that you don’t de-market the good product by forcefully associating it with the ugly product.
“We know the intention of these trolls and spin doctors, who have also gone ahead to provoke our Principal’s massive supporters across the country and diaspora by twisting his recent media interview to insinuate that he is ready to be Vice President to anyone.
“But that fallacy could not be true of a man who has repeatedly stated in various forums that he is not desperate to be President but desperate to see Nigeria work.”
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