Presidential aide Daniel Bwala says his erstwhile principal and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar may not have been destined to become the President of Nigeria.
“There is my former principal who believes that he is going to win,” Bwala said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Monday, dismissing the chances of Atiku and other opposition coalition leaders such as Peter Obi and Rotimi Amaechi to unseat 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 was an Atiku campaign spokesperson in the 2023 election but he switched loyalty to Tinubu months ago.
‘Opposition has no alternative policies’
The opposition leaders had come together last week to adopt the African Democratic Party (ADC) as the platform for its coalition to send Tinubu whom they said has taken the country backwards packing from the Aso Villa.
But Bwala dismissed any threat from them, saying that they have been unable to present alternative policies which can convince Nigerians to vote for 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’
Brushing off the threat of the opposition leaders to the Tinubu’s presidency further, Bwala said that the recently formed coalition will not last beyond six months.
He said that the struggle for who will be the flagbearer under the newly adopted ADC will balkanize the coalition and make things easier for 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.
