Atiku not destined to become president — Daniel Bwala

Presidential aide Daniel Bwala has said his former principal and ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar may not have been destined to become Nigeria’s President.

“There is my former principal who believes that he is going to win,” Bwala said on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, as he dismissed the chances of Atiku and other opposition coalition figures like 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.

Bwala, who served as a spokesperson for Atiku’s campaign in the 2023 election, switched allegiance to Tinubu months after the polls.

Reacting to the recent opposition coalition formed to challenge the Tinubu-led government—adopting the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as its platform—Bwala said the group lacks the ideas and plans to gain public support.

“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.