I Informed Atiku Before, After Meeting With Tinubu – Bwala

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Sunday, January 14th, 2024

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Daniel Bwala, then spokesman for Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 2023 presidential poll, says he informed his ex-principal of his meeting with President Bola Tinubu. 

“I informed Atiku Abubakar I was going to see the President,” Bwala said on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme.

“After I had seen the President, I informed him (Atiku) that I had just seen the President and he replied me that, ‘Thanks Daniel for notifying me’.”

Bwala, a rabid critic of Tinubu, the then presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), also said his decision to now support the ex-governor of Lagos State, who won the February 2023 presidential poll, does not mean he betrayed Atiku.

“It’s absolute nonsense for somebody to say because I said I will support President Bola Tinubu therefore I betrayed Atiku,” the lawyer said matter-of-factly on the programme.

He described as absurd, criticisms trailing his sudden-found support for Tinubu whom he flayed during the 2023 politicking process.

In July 2022, Bwala, then an APC member, dumped the ruling party when Tinubu announced his running mate as ex-Borno governor, Kashim Shettima. The lawyer and politician faulted Tinubu for his choice of a Muslim as himself as a running mate and quickly joined the campaign train of Atiku, a Muslim and ex-Vice President, who chose a Christian as running mate in the person of ex-Delta governor, Ifeanyi Okowa.

Bwala was one of the very vocal and unsparing spokespersons of Atiku during the campaign that culminated into the last poll.

However, the lawyer shocked Nigerians last Wednesday when he met with the President at the Aso Villa in Abuja, Nigeria’s political capital, and declared his unalloyed support for him.

Bwala has since attracted a scathing string of criticisms with many questioning his political ideology but the lawyer said “even ideology, you have the right to change ideology”.

The lawyer said his job as Atiku’s spokesman during the last campaign was that of a salesman with the sole responsibility of selling a product and demarketing competitors. Bwala, who made a sharp U-turn, said he never said Tinubu wasn’t fit to be Nigeria’s President, adding that now that Atiku did not win, Tinubu is okay for the job.

Bwala was taciturn in his response when asked whether he was still a PDP member or he has now returned to the APC.

He also said the President did not promise him any appointment in his cabinet during Wednesday visit but he would be willing to work with the President in any capacity offered him in the interest of the Nigerian people.

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