The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, has alleged that former Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, sought to enlist his support through former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, after the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary election.
Naijaonpoint reports that Bwala made the disclosure on The Clarity Zone podcast while responding to remarks reportedly attributed to Obi, in which the former Anambra State governor was said to have described him as a character.
Rather than take offence, Bwala embraced the description, insisting the term character aptly describes Obi himself.
Bwala said, “Are you not a character? Are you a character? In a movie, an actor is a character, isn’t he?. He is actually the character‑in‑chief.”
He went on to accuse Obi of engaging in what he described as political theatrics, saying the former LP flagbearer sold an appealing but unrealistic narrative.
Bwala said, “What he’s playing is what we call theatrics. You are demonstrating a fictitious picture of a reality that will never exist. I think that is the hope he sold to his people.”
He also alleged that Obi’s supporters became disillusioned after the 2023 election, when he lost, and struggled to cope with what he described as the collapse of the fantasy around Obi’s campaign.
“So, after the election, when they saw reality dawn, and he lost the election, they couldn’t manage the picture of the fantasy that was painted in their mind. And they ran berserk,” he said, accusing some supporters of attacking critics across social media.
“They don’t have a particular platform where they stay. They just go to everybody’s page. They abuse you here, they migrate, abuse people,” Bwala added.
Bwala rejected suggestions that his criticisms were personal, insisting they were grounded in facts about Obi’s tenure as governor of Anambra State.
He said, “I never intended to insult him. It was a fact that can either be substantiated or debunked.”
He accused Obi of prioritising savings over infrastructure development and cited instances where doctors in the state went on strike due to poor funding and working conditions.
Bwala said, “I said he was all about saving money rather than investing in infrastructure. And the worst part is that even the money that he saved, he saved in a bank to which he was a chairman.”
He further claimed Obi avoided answering questions about his role in the bank and whether he benefited from dividends arising from state deposits.
“When you ask him the question, he ran away from answering whether he was a chairman or not,” he alleged.
Addressing a purported claim that he had never visited Anambra State, Bwala dismissed it as false, saying he was familiar with the state and its communities.
“I can tell you the road that leads to his house,” Bwala said, naming several communities across Anambra and the South‑East.
On the claim that Obi reached out to him through Obasanjo, Bwala said the outreach occurred while he was abroad.
He said, “The day former President Olusegun Obasanjo, whom I never had his contact from Adam, called me, I was in London. I was about entering the tube station. He was in Transcorp Hilton with Peter Obi and Datti when the call was made for me to come and work with him.”
Bwala insisted his account was verifiable and said an ambassador helped facilitate the communication.
He said, “I’m calling names. I didn’t say spirits and angels. I’m calling names.”
Bwala reiterated that he was unbothered by the character label, adding that the substantive issues he raised deserved answers, not personal attacks.