•Special Adviser to the President on Media and Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, during an interview with Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hassan
A Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Phrank Shaibu, has mocked presidential media aide Daniel Bwala over what he described as an “embarrassing outing” during an interview on the programme Head to Head on Al Jazeera.
The interview, anchored by journalist Mehdi Hasan, has drawn criticism from political opponents who claim Bwala struggled to defend the policies of the administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, reports Sunday Guardian.
Shaibu, in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja, said Bwala’s political trajectory had been defined by what he described as the “opportunistic merchandising of allegiance.”
He said the presidential aide should spare Nigerians “moral lectures about courage and conviction.”
According to him, Bwala’s “sudden discovery of courage and rhetorical flourish” was amusing, considering what he described as a pattern of shifting political loyalties.
“His political trajectory has been defined less by conviction and more by opportunistic merchandising of allegiance,” Shaibu said.
He further alleged that Bwala had once sought the assistance of the Atiku media team to circulate claims that the president and his associates were threatening his life.
“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,” Shaibu said.
“He was quite insistent that we amplify that narrative at the time. We declined deliberately because we recognised it for what it was — a frivolous and opportunistic attempt at political theatre.”
Shaibu also criticised Bwala’s defence of the government during the Al Jazeera interview, arguing that the programme exposed contradictions between the presidential aide’s past comments and his current position.
According to him, the interviewer confronted Bwala with previous statements he made about President Tinubu, forcing him to retreat to the explanation that his earlier criticisms were “politics.”
He described such justification as morally troubling, especially in the context of the country’s security challenges.
“The wastage of thousands of Nigerian lives to insecurity over the past two years cannot be brushed aside as mere politics,” Shaibu said.
He further alleged that Bwala struggled to reconcile his past criticisms with his current role defending the administration, adding that the interview exposed weaknesses in the government’s talking points.
Shaibu also took a swipe at the presidential aide’s language during the interview, accusing him of making grammatical errors.
“How does a ‘lawyer,’ one so eager to sermonise about competence, manage to betray such basic illiteracy in the English language?” he said.
“Water, for his information, is an uncountable noun. One does not say ‘this is a water.’ One says ‘this is water’ or ‘a glass of water.’”
Shaibu concluded by accusing Bwala of attempting to recast shifting political loyalties as principled positions.
“History, unfortunately for him, keeps receipts — and so do we,” he said.
