Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has fired back at Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Communication, describing him as a “political opportunist” whose recent comments reek of “bitterness and duplicity.”
Bwala, who served as spokesperson for Atiku’s 2023 presidential campaign under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), recently urged the former vice president to “accept that the presidency may not be part of his destiny.”
“If I have the opportunity to meet him face to face, what I will tell him is just this: ‘Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, you have to believe in destiny… It may not have been the will of God for you to govern Nigeria,’” Bwala said during a television interview.
But in a statement on Tuesday, Atiku’s media team dismissed Bwala’s remarks as sanctimonious and hypocritical.
Part of the statement read: “It is both ironic and pathetic that Mr Bwala — a political turncoat who once served as spokesperson for Atiku Abubakar’s 2023 presidential campaign — now presumes to lecture a statesman of global standing on matters of legacy, destiny, and retirement.
“Atiku Abubakar neither seeks nor requires validation from political opportunists who shed principles as easily as they change parties.
“Mr Bwala’s current relevance, if any, is owed entirely to the platform he once occupied under Atiku’s leadership — a fact that should breed humility, not arrogance.”
The statement also accused the Tinubu administration of being obsessed with Atiku, citing repeated attacks and attempts to undermine his political relevance.
“If, as they claim, Atiku is a spent force, why the relentless smear campaign? Why the strategic allocation of presidential platforms to attack him?
“The answer is plain: Atiku Abubakar remains the single most formidable opposition figure in Nigeria, and the coalition he is forging represents a clear and present danger to the decaying edifice of the ruling party,” the statement read.
The former vice president’s media office also alluded to his efforts to build a “broad-based alliance aimed at reclaiming Nigeria from economic collapse, institutional failure, and democratic erosion.”
They described Atiku’s legacy as one rooted not in office but in “courage, consistency, and conviction,” saying it is “impervious to the revisionist bile of yesterday’s defectors turned today’s defenders of dysfunction.”
Responding to Bwala’s claim that Atiku had lost 60 to 70 percent of his political base, the media team reaffirmed the PDP stalwart’s commitment to national recovery.
“Atiku remains focused and unshaken in his pursuit of Nigeria’s progress. The rescue and rebuilding of Nigeria is a task of urgent national importance — far too important to be derailed by the petty ego trips of desperate presidential aides,” the statement said.
