Daniel Bwala, a presidential aide, has said that his former principal and ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar may not have been destined to become Nigeria’s President.
“There is my former principal who believes that he is going to win,” Bwala said during Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Monday, dismissing the chances of Atiku and other opposition coalition leaders like Peter Obi and Rotimi Amaechi to defeat President Bola Tinubu in 2027.
“In all honesty, I have expressed my opinion that it may never have been destined by God for him to be a president in Nigeria because he has done everything he needs to do to be president and he did not win the presidency.
“2023 was the biggest opportunity that my former principal Atiku Abubakar had. He will never have that kind of privilege again,” he said.
Interestingly, Bwala served as Atiku’s campaign spokesperson during the 2023 election but later switched his allegiance to Tinubu.
Opposition has no alternative policies
Opposition leaders recently agreed to use the African Democratic Party as the platform for their coalition to remove Tinubu, whom they accused of leading the country backward.
However, Bwala dismissed their efforts, saying they have failed to provide alternative policies that could convince Nigerians to support them.
“What I still find intriguing is that this coalition of internally displaced politicians have not been able to summon the courage and come up with alternative facts, alternative policies or alternative programmes.
“Throughout the interview you had with Peter Obi, what I find is that he has not been able to counter or to disagree in the real sense of the word with the policies that we are implementing,” he said.
Coalition will scatter in six months
Bwala further downplayed the threat posed by the opposition coalition to Tinubu’s presidency, predicting that the coalition would not last beyond six months.
He stated that internal disputes over who would emerge as the presidential candidate under the ADC would break up the coalition, ultimately benefiting Tinubu in 2027.
“All this fantasy of coalition, we all know that once there is a phenomenon like that we are going to have a good two to three weeks of all these romanticizing of ‘we have ideas, we can do this’.
“But one of them, his name is Datti (Baba-Ahmed) already sensed the danger that is ahead for them and he said that the problem of theis coalition will be who will be the president because right now, I’m quoting him, ‘everybody wants to be the president’.
“After one month when they sit down, I am telling you on my own honour, in the next six months, that coalition thing will not even be a conversation, they will scatter,” Bwala added.