The Media Office of ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, on Tuesday, said Daniel Bwala was a spokesperson for the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organisation in the 2023 polls, and not a former aide to the ex-Vice President.
“Bwala offered his services and support to the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organisation as a spokesperson – and it was a position he held during the last presidential campaign,” the media office of the ex-VP clarified.
“Subsequently, and after the election, the need for a campaign spokesperson has terminated, and Bwala has moved on with his career.
“This, therefore, serves as notice to the media and the interested public to desist from defining Bwala as an ex-aide of Atiku Abubakar.
“We duly urge the public to henceforth recognize, introduce, and define Daniel Bwala by his current vocation and alliance,” the statement added.
Bwala, a rabid critic of President Bola Tinubu, the then presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), had 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.
He had 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 on January 10, 2024 when he met with the President at the Aso Villa in Abuja, Nigeria’s political capital, and declared his unalloyed support for him. He would later meet with Tinubu in Paris, France, a few weeks later.
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 had 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.
He had also said the President did not promise him any appointment in his cabinet during his visit but he would be willing to work with the President in any capacity offered him in the interest of the Nigerian people.