The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy and Communication, Daniel Bwala, has said the Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi, will not secure either the presidential or Vice-Presidential ticket of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Bwala, who spoke in a recent interview on “The Clarity Zone Podcast”, described Obi as politically isolated.
He argued that the former Governor lacks the political capacity to lead or coordinate any coalition arrangement, including serving as director-general of such an alliance.
According to the presidential aide, Obi has lost control of the political structure he built after the 2023 general election and no longer wields significant influence within Nigeria’s political landscape.
Bwala further questioned Obi’s political relevance, arguing that the former Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate no longer commands the loyalty of key political actors.
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“After the election, he lost everybody he was leading. He had members in the House of Representatives. How many are there in the National Assembly?” Bwala asked.
He also claimed that Obi no longer enjoys the support of sitting governors or elected officials.
“The only governor he had… is the governor with him or with us? In fact, I have not seen one that identifies with him at the moment,” he said.
Bwala additionally alleged that candidates backed by Obi performed poorly in subsequent elections across the country, insisting that none of those he supported recorded electoral victories.
The presidential aide also criticised Obi’s supporters on social media, accusing them of attacking political opponents while overlooking what he described as Obi’s history of frequent party defections.
“The army of Trojans that he has on social media, they attack people. They say you are two-faced, that you change party,” Bwala said.
“But when you say their master and hero has been changing party like a player in the Premier League changes clubs every season, they don’t like it.”
Bwala further accused Obi of hypocrisy on the issue of party loyalty, tracing his political movement across different parties over the years.
“He started with PDP, then went to APGA. In APGA, he came back to PDP. From PDP, he went to Labour,” he said.
Bwala added that Obi is currently politically adrift, describing his situation as one of uncertainty.
“Right now, when you hear people talk about being between the devil and the deep blue sea, he is between ADC and Labour,” Bwala stated.
He insisted that Obi would not secure either the presidential or vice-presidential ticket of the ADC and predicted that the former Anambra State governor would eventually contest the next general election on a different platform.
“He will not be the presidential candidate, he will not be the vice-presidential candidate. Peter Obi is going to run on a platform other than Labour and other than ADC,” he said.
The presidential aide further predicted that Obi would be unable to secure even a quarter of the votes he garnered in the 2023 presidential election, in which he polled 6,101,533 votes to place third behind the candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Bwala characterised Obi’s political rise as the result of a temporary opening rather than sustained grassroots support, describing him as “an actor” whose popularity, he claimed, was built on “make-believe” rather than political reality.
