EDITORIAL: Bwala And Tinubu’s Love For Critics

President Bola Tinubu on Thursday, November 14 appointed Daniel Bwala, a former spokesperson for the Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation as his Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications (State House). Bwala’s appointment comes after months of defending the former Vice President and casting aspersions on the candidature of the President.

In a July 12, 2022 interview on Arise News, Bwala said he left the ruling party to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because he did not want to defend the Muslim-Muslim ticket that produced Tinubu and his vice, Kashim Shettima in the build-up to the general elections. However, the tide changed when he met the President on January 10, 2024, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Speaking after the meeting, the Borno State-born lawyer said, “I honoured the invitation of His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is a father to the nation, who God has given the opportunity to lead the country at this difficult time, so I came to celebrate and congratulate him. I also gave him my commitment that as citizens of this country, this is the time for us to throw our weight behind and support the administration.

“I am also here to say that I am supporting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of achieving the objectives of the problems in the country, I don’t think at this time of hunger and problems in the country somebody should be here talking about the party and as per defection God knows tomorrow,” Bwala said.

Many people had believed Bwala cross-carpeted to the President’s camp because of a possible appointment, which materialised over the last week. However, his appointment is one in a series of many for the President’s known critics, ever since he got to the Villa.

Tinubu had appointed the likes of Festus Keyamo, Bosun Tijani, among others, who vehemently opposed his Presidential bid. While Keyamo, a strong critic of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been rewarded with a ministerial position twice, Tijani, a staunch Obi-dient got to the government and nearly had his screening stalled but for political intervention.

Like Bwala, Keyamo, and Tijani, several aides of President Tinubu were his biggest critics in the run-up to the election that brought him to power. Can we say it is the love of the President for critics that has earned them much love of being given sensitive positions in government? In nascent democracies the world over, the winner takes all arrangement is not pronounced because of its sensitivity. Most of the time, strong opposition voices are brought to the helm of affairs to deal with the issues they daily criticise.

Bwala is coming at a time when many Nigerians are disenchanted with the present administration. From the rising cost of living to the food inflation, economic hardship, prevailing insecurity and issues of grand corruption, the task before Bwala is clear. The citizens demand to know where government is headed on many areas and his expertise as a political communicator will be hugely appraised in the coming months. 

Will Bwala pass this test of defending a government he had sworn to never support? Will the President’s love for his die-hard critics to have a shot at government yield results?

Time is the best jurist.