Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Communication, has said that former presidential candidate Peter Obi will neither emerge as the presidential nor vice-presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
The presidential aide described Obi as a politically stranded politician.
During an interview on The Clarity Zone Podcast, the presidential aide argued that Obi lacks the political capacity to lead or coordinate any coalition movement, including serving as director-general of such an alliance.
Obi has lost control of the political structure he built after the 2023 general election and no longer has significant influence in Nigeria’s political space.
“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 questioned Obi’s current political relevance, noting that the former Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate no longer enjoys the backing 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 also claimed that candidates supported by Obi performed poorly in subsequent elections across the country, insisting that none of the candidates he supported recorded electoral success.
“All the elections he has gone across Nigeria supporting candidates… all of them failed,” he added.
The presidential adviser chastised Obi’s supporters on social media, accusing them of targeting political opponents while ignoring Obi’s record of repeated 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 accused Obi of duplicity about party allegiance, citing his political career from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), back to the PDP, and finally to the Labour Party.
“He started with PDP, then went to APGA. In APGA, he came back to PDP. From PDP, he went to Labour,” he said.
He added that the former Anambra State governor currently finds himself politically stranded. “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.
Bwala stressed that Obi would not secure either the presidential or vice-presidential ticket of the ADC and would eventually contest the next general election on a different political 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 also claimed that Obi would not receive even a fifth of the votes he received in the 2023 presidential election, where he finished third behind candidates from the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the PDP.
Bwala regarded Obi’s political rise as the result of a one-time opportunity rather than long-term grassroots strength, calling him “an actor” whose popularity was based on “make-believe” rather than political reality.
