Tinubu and Contact With the Onoh Family

By Theophilus Chukwu

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had established contact and friendship in 1994 with His Excellency, the Late Chief Christian Chukwuman Onoh, popularly known as C.C Onoh, during the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) days. The like minds were the progressives who fought for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria from the military incursion in politics. Onoh was a no-nonsense man who fought against injustice whether it affected him directly or not. That led him into securing the liberation of the Wawa people in Igbo land and actualized the creation of Enugu and Ebonyi states. In his own case, President Tinubu contributed significantly to the military agreeing to relinquish power to civilians, which in the process led to his fleeing the country and taking refuge overseas. The rest have now become history.

It was, therefore, not a surprise that Dr. Josef Onoh quickly aligned with Tinubu immediately after Jagaban declared his interest to contest for the presidency of Nigeria. Despite his political affiliation with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under which he aspired to become the Governor of Enugu state, Josef Onoh resigned his membership of the PDP and became the spokesman of the Tinubu campaign in the south east zone. Ever since then, Onoh has remained the most reliable spokesman of President Tinubu, even without being offered any appointment in the two years administration.

Onoh took the job of marketing the candidature of Tinubu at a time when it was a taboo for anybody in the southeast to say anything less than Igbo presidency. He was confident that Tinubu would win and become the best president that Nigeria produced. He took on the Ohanaeze Ndigbo for making uncomplimentary remarks on the declaration of Tinubu as winner of the 2023 presidential election, informing Ndigbo that Tinubu did not cage their destiny but would work for the fulfillment of their aspirations in Nigeria. Among the outstanding defences that Onoh had made for Tinubu include his intervention, throwing weight behind the Minister of State for Defence, Alhaji Bello Matawalle who urged the president’s appointees from the northern extraction to stand up in Defence of President Tinubu’s attack by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF). When the issue of Musilm/Musilm ticket became blackmail to Tinubu’s campaign, Onoh asked Nigerians to think out of the box, maintaining that the so-called Muslim/Muslim slogan only offered politicians the conducive excuse to continue to exploit the gullibility of some Nigerians. Asiwaju did not forget but continued to maintain relationships with the Onoh family, stressing it with a visit to Ambassador Bianca Ojukwu when he was in Enugu for the presidential campaign.

Investigative journalist Kemi Olunloyo hinted that Tinubu would offer an appointment to Onoh when Tinubu made cabinet reshuffle, the President appointed Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu (Nee Onoh) as the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.

Bianca, too, has continued in the steps of his immediate younger brother, Josef, making good representations of the government she serves. In the recent hullabaloo that trailed the coincidental meeting of the President with Mr. Peter Obi and Dr. Kayode Fayemi in the Vatican, Bianca cleared the air with a simple narrative of how the chance meeting occurred and how Seyi Tinubu saved a man who wanted to die in Vatican. After her story on religious tolerance and interfaith advocacy, everybody went to rest.

The Onohs image laundering of Mr. President brings to question once more on the genuine roles of the President’s numerous media team whose jobs are being performed by non designated spokespersons. It took Josef Onoh to tame the tide of Babachir Lawal and sat the former secretary to the federal government in the back seat where he belongs. For a government that is being asked to go a second term with mounting opposition, the President’s media handlers should appear serious other than lackadaisical. There must be a stronger tie that President Tinubu has with the Onohs for them to be giving their extra strengths for the administration of President Tinubu. Most critical attacks on the President have always been handled by Josef Onoh, delivering with facts, figures, and evidence. Without holding any political office, Onoh has done better than most of Tinubu’s political appointees with his versatility and wide reach in the media. Almost every person Onoh persuaded, particularly in the southeast, including Ohanaeze Ndigbo, to join in support of the Tinubu has now come into realization, pledging support for Mr President.

Unlike other presidential candidates in the 2023 election, Tinubu decentralized his campaign team into regions, making Onoh his spokesperson in the southeast. It was a jinx breaking initiative that disclosed Tinubu’s ingenuity and visible difference and preempted his plan for Nigeria’s unique leadership. There is no doubt that there is something in the Onohs that Tinubu saw that others didn’t see. Bianca, in her end, has brought more fidelity to the Tinubu administration with her maestro in international relations. Her Vatican visit with the President showed the Tinubu administration in a spectrum that has changed the country’s perception before the international community. Her narration of Mr. Seyi Tinubu’s salvation of a collapsed visitor in the Vatican is an indication that the Nigeria team that participated in the Papal inauguration ceremony was by no means brand ambassadors of the country. There is no doubt that there is something different with the Onohs greater than their parental heritage in which only the President is the vision bearer!

A Clinical psychologist and profiler by training, Dr Josef Onoh is a strategist who inaugurated the Asiwaju Renewed Mandate Southeast (ARMSE) in 2024 to counter threats from Northern Nigeria over President Tinubu’s potential 2027 re-election bid.
He has spoken out on issues affecting the Southeast region, emphasizing the need for recognition and inclusion in national politics. His charismatic trait led him to personally ensuring that the late Igbo leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, married Bianca when their father, CC Onoh, insisted against the marriage. It was Josef Onoh who saved the day and made the wedding a success by personally flying down from the United Kingdom and gave Bianca’s hand in marriage to Ojukwu. It was the same Josef Onoh that walked Bianca down the aisle. In recent times, Josef Onoh ensured that the history of Ojukwu was not dented by apologists who trumped up wrong narratives on his late in-law to place themselves in a safe haven. The narrative in the streets of Anambra state and APC loyalist in Anambra is that it was Josef who picked Bianca to be made a minister despite her political affiliation with the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

In his brave manner, Onoh was among the very few, with Nasiru El’Rufai, who criticized the naira redesign of the former Central Bank Governor, Godwin Efemiele and called on the DSS to arrest the then CBN Governor. When the UK parliamentarian George Galloway attacked President Tinubu, Josef Onoh was the only Nigeria who exposed Galloway and brought him to his knees. Without any appointment from President Tinubu, he has remained the most consistent politician in support of the Tinubu administration. This has left most people confused if it was one of the President’s political masterstroke in political engagement outside the presidency to enable him to engage the opposition from all angles.

All these are happening at a time when the President’s beneficiaries have abandoned him at critical moments, and he will need more active, committed and articulated media team with same proactive approach exhibited by likes of Josef Onoh, Femi Fani-kayode if he is to withstand the force of the opposition ahead of the next election.

*Theophilus is a public analyst who wrote from Abuja