Daniel Bwala, the special counsel for public communications and media for President Bola Tinubu, dismissed the relevance of the political alliance championed by former Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai, asserted that the movement lacked appeal and had lost momentum.
Speech on AIT Program Focus on Nigeria On Wednesday, May 14, Bouwara criticized the initiative. “I know that the people of the South have usually completed their sentiment towards the North for eight years. The South should allow eight years,” Bwala said. “These Southerners with this sentiment, even in political parties that the Northerners compete. They won’t vote for the Northern candidate. They will vote for the Southern candidate. It’s fair, just, just, just.”
Bouwara believes that political forces in the north are often exaggerated, pointing to a group of elites, who he said do not really represent the region. “When we talk about the North, there are sometimes misunderstandings. People identify five egg heads and call them North. Some of them are disconnected from the source,” he said.
Bwala did not initially name El-Rufai, and he mentioned that a former governor attracted attention through a political alliance. He said, “I give you a role model for governors; a former governor, who left us, was moving, causing a buzz.” When the anchor pointed to whether he was referring to the pressure from El-Rufai, Bwala replied, “Well, yes.”
He argued that El-Rufai’s political significance began to decline even before the end of his term as governor. “For example, there are people in the south or somewhere else: when they see him talking, they think he will move like that thunder from the blue sky,” Bwala said. “But politically, those who look at politics – that’s political science, because it’s a science behind politics. You look at statistics, look at numbers, look at trajectories, right?”
Bouwara cites Kaduna’s election results, claiming that El-Rufai was evident during her second term. “In the second half of his term, when he finished his second term, he was so unpopular that the APC lost three Senate seats and many Houses, where the president lost the election,” he said. “So people don’t look at those. But political scientists, they see these things as indexes. They know it’s like Andrew’s liver salt. Even when he started, it’s like that. It’s like he put down Andrew’s liver salt and calmed down. That’s what happened.
Bouwara added that even in the coalition field, there were calls for El Ruffa to return to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). “Even among the people who are talking about the alliance now, he said he wants to move somewhere. They said, back to the PDP.”
Defending President Tinub’s popularity, Bouwara dismissed the president’s lack of support. “Now, they’ll make a complaint, they’ll say the president is not welcome. We went to Casina with the president two weeks ago (about two weeks ago). From the airport to the city, people lined up.”
