The camp of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, over his attempt to defend his recent appearance on Al Jazeera’s Head to Head programme.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Saturday, Atiku’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, described Bwala’s outing on the programme hosted by Mehdi Hasan as embarrassing and accused him of parading falsehoods.
He said, “We have read the latest statement issued by Daniel Bwala in the aftermath of his rather embarrassing interview with a mixture of suppressed disgust and embarrassment — not for ourselves, but for the sheer enthusiasm with which he parades falsehoods as though repetition could somehow elevate them into truth.
“Bwala’s sudden discovery of courage and rhetorical flourish is rather amusing, especially from someone whose political trajectory has been defined less by conviction and more by opportunistic merchandising of allegiance.
“Since he now appears eager to rewrite history, it is necessary to refresh his memory.”
Shaibu further claimed that Bwala had previously asked the Atiku media team to issue a statement alleging threats to his life from Tinubu and his associates.
“We remain in possession of his message requesting that the Atiku Media Team issue a press statement claiming that President Tinubu and his associates were threatening his life. He was quite insistent that we amplify that narrative at the time.
“We deliberately declined because we recognised it for what it was: a frivolous and opportunistic attempt at political theatre, consistent with his long-established penchant for turning politics into a marketplace where loyalty is traded like a commodity.”
The Atiku aide also dismissed Bwala’s defence of his performance during the interview.
“His attempt to recast the Mehdi Hasan interview as some heroic act of intellectual bravery is equally amusing. Anyone who watched that exchange objectively saw something quite different.
“The interviewer methodically dismantled the talking points he came armed with and exposed, one after the other, the contradictions between his past statements and his present posture,” he said.
