The former southeast spokesman to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Josef Onoh, has raised concerns over what he alleged is a united silence around President Bola Ahmed Tinubu immediately after the United States of America designated Nigeria a country of particular concern.
He accused all the elected political office holders in the All Progressives Congress (APC) of the betrayal silence but said it is more worrisome that Tinubu’s political appointees and cabinet members are part of those maintaining silence at a critical period.
Onoh, in a statement explained
In the high-stakes arena of global diplomacy, where a nation’s reputation hangs by the thinnest of threads, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu finds himself isolated in a precarious ledge.
He said the ongoing US designation of Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ (CPC) for severe violations of religious freedom is a damning indictment that threatens economic sanctions, visa restrictions, and international isolation and has exposed the fragility of Tinubu’s administration like never before.
“As the world watches and Washington deliberates, I’m shocked that the President’s most ardent political allies have retreated into an unnerving silence. Not a single voice from the APC governors, the National Assembly members, or the cadre of presidential appointees has risen in robust defense.
“Yet mention Peter Obi, Atiku, Goodluck Jonathan any opposition, they will all wake up in all aggressive focus rushing to contribute something on the social media space. Clearly, the current situation has exposed they all have nothing to offer outside local political scope of opposition attacks. I alerted the president few months ago to trust only his wife, the first lady, and the reason is becoming evident.
“This is not mere oversight; it is a calculated abandonment, a stark revelation of the rot at the heart of Nigeria’s ruling party.”
Onoh said that as a keen observer of Nigeria’s political theater and an unapologetic advocate for meritocracy, the current silence lays bare his alleged betrayal.
“The APC’s machinery, once a juggernaut of unified purpose, now creaks under the weight of its own incompetence. Tinubu stands alone not because the cause is lost, but because he has been orphaned by the very cabal he empowered.
“Where are the governors who owe their palaces to his patronage? Where are the senators and representatives who feasted at his table? And the appointees—those placeholders in ministerial robes and agency sinecures—why do they not rally with strategies, lobbying, or even a modicum of public solidarity?
“And to my greatest shock, only the voices of few in the likes of Rabiu Kwankwaso, Sen. Ali Ndume were heard, they put the love of country first before politics and they are critics of this government yet their voices were heard when it was needed.
“The roots of this desertion trace back to a fatal miscalculation in the administration’s infancy. In the euphoric haze of victory, The President’s team prioritized loyalty over luminosity, doling out key positions not to the architects of policy or the tacticians of governance, but to political jobbers—those opportunistic fixers whose currency is allegiance, not expertise.
“Ministries meant for economic wizards were handed to non party loyalists with résumés as thin as their grasp of fiscal levers. Those that genuinely supported the president were abandoned. Advisory roles, critical for navigating international waters, went to sycophants skilled in flattery but adrift in the complexities of diplomacy.
“The National Assembly, bloated with APC majorities, became an echo chamber of standing on your mandate rather than a forge for legislative armor and today their silence out of fear of US visa revocations for them and their families if they speak boldly in your defense clearly shows majority of people surrounding you Mr. President are only standing on their own individual mandate and not yours.
“The Governors many ensconced in their state fiefdoms, view federal tempests as distant storms, hoarding resources while offering platitudes in private.
“Now, as the US State Department’s scrutiny intensifies—fueled by reports of escalating religious tensions, extrajudicial killings, and institutional biases—these “allies” reveal their true mettle: brittle and self-serving. There is no surge of diplomatic envoys dispatched to Capitol Hill, no flood of op-eds from APC luminaries in global outlets, no coordinated push from appointees leveraging their networks.
“Instead, Mr. President toils in solitary command, your mornings consumed by frantic calls to envoys and your evenings by the gnawing realization that the engine room of this government is staffed by passengers, not pilots. The actual work—crafting nuanced responses, mobilizing civil society coalitions, or even drafting a compelling counter-narrative—falls to a skeleton crew like myself and holdovers from prior regimes or overworked civil servants. The jobbers, predictably, excel at optics: photo-ops at Aso Rock, viral tweets of feigned outrage, but zero substantive output.”
Onoh warned that the situation is no isolated fiasco but the harbinger of systemic collapse.
“When competency is sacrificed at the altar of patronage, the bill comes due in crises like this,” he says. “Tinubu’s vision of a renewed Nigeria—bold infrastructure leaps, agricultural revolutions, and security overhauls—crumbles not under external pressure, but internal vacuum. The US designation is a mirror reflecting the administration’s soul: competent enough to win elections, but woefully unprepared to lead a nation through fire.”
“Yet, in this valley of silence I see a clarion call for redemption. Mr. President must purge the jobber class, elevating individuals and technocrats who can turn rhetoric into results. The APC Governors and legislators owe The President more than inertia; they must step forward with actionable support—perhaps a bipartisan resolution in the Assembly, or governors-led advocacy tours in key US states.
Appointees should be measured not by their party badges, but by their deliverables. Only then can the echo of silence be replaced by a chorus of competence.
“Nigeria’s story is one of resilience, not resignation. As the US deadline looms, Tinubu’s solitude need not be his sentence. It can be the spark that ignites a merit-based renaissance, proving that true allies are forged in the crucible of crisis, not the ballot box. My voice cuts through the quiet: the time for excuses is over. The work—the real work—begins now. I stood alone from the beginning with President Tinubu and I’ll Stand by him till the end of this tenure we laboured to win.”
