Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga unleashed a sharp rebuke against Rauf Aregbesola, the former Osun State Governor and interior minister, branding his public record a failure and dismissing his call for President Bola Tinubu’s resignation.
Onanuga’s response came hours after Aregbesola’s remarks at the African Democratic Congress (ADC) convention, where the former Governor and National Secretary of the opposition party, urged President Tinubu to step down and criticized his administration’s handling of Nigeria’s economy and security woes.
“My attention has been drawn to Rauf Aregbesola’s attack on the Tinubu administration at today’s illegal elective convention of the ADC—a party of desperados and power mongers who, to date, have not articulated any credible plan for Nigeria,” Onanuga wrote on verifiable Xhandle (formerly Twitter).
The Special Adviser on Information and Strategu accused Aregbesola of “parroting the opposition’s warped narratives about the economy and orchestrated reports of terrorist attacks,” adding that the ex-Governor showed “no honest self-reflection” on his own tenure.
As Osun governor from 2011 to 2018, Aregbesola presided over months-long salary delays for civil servants and partial payments under what Onanuga called “half-baked socialist policies.”
Onanuga said pensioners fared worse, with many dying unpaid, he claimed. Successor Adegboyega Oyetola’s government spent years cleaning up the mess, while current Govermor Ademola Adeleke continues to contend with fallout.
Aregbesola’s stint as interior minister under ex-President Muhammadu Buhari from 2019 to 2023 drew even harsher fire. It saw Nigeria’s worst jailbreaks, including the 2022 Kuje Prison assault in Abuja, plus 15 major attacks on facilities in Jos, Onotu, Imo, Kabba, and Okitipupa. Over 4,000 inmates escaped, bolstering criminal networks, Onanuga said.
Passport issuance turned into a “nightmare.” For someone who failed so woefully to secure our correctional centres…it is ironic that Aregbesola now seeks to lecture others on insecurity,” the presidential aide wrote.
“Maybe he thinks the entire Nigerian population suffers from amnesia.”
Onanuga defended President Tinubu’s reforms, admitting short-term pain from subsidy cuts and currency changes but citing cash transfers, a higher minimum wage, small-business aid, falling inflation, rising GDP, bolstered foreign reserves, and investor gains under the “Renewed Hope Agenda.”
On security, he pointed to military investments tackling “inherited” threats.
“No, Rauf, the Renewed Hope Agenda is not a scam. The real scammers are the politicians gathered inside the SPV called ADC,” he concluded.
NewsQuest reports that tensions between the ADC and Presisent Tinubu’s All Progressives Congress (APC) have simmered as the 2027 general elections draw closer.
