Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Policy, has forecasted that Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s (LP) 2023 presidential candidate, would soon leave the party and pitch his tent with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2027 elections.
Bwala made this assertion recently during an interview on TVC, suggesting that Obi’s defection is not just a matter of if but when.
Bwala said: “Do you know we are emptying the Labour Party? Not because we are asking them to come. Valentine Ozigbo has joined us, Isaac Balami has joined us. Even Peter Obi will join us. Peter Obi will not run in the Labour Party. For Valentine Ozigbo to come to our party and he is actually the custodian of Peter Obi, then I know for a fact that Peter Obi will join us.”
Recall that Ozigbo, the former PDP governorship candidate in Anambra State, recently defected to the APC, a move Bwala feels signals a broader realignment of political loyalties.
Peter Obi has not publicly responded to Bwala’s claims so far but the statement has generated widespread debate, with political analysts weighing the plausibility of such a move.
Obi, renowned for his grassroots support and his popularity among Nigerian youth, became a formidable force during the 2023 elections, garnering millions of votes and reshaping Nigeria’s political dynamics. His alignment with the APC would represent a seismic shift in the country’s opposition politics.
During the interview, Bwala attached little importance to the recent defection of Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna State, from the APC to the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
He described the defection as a strategic media ploy and accused the SDP of orchestrating weekly announcements of new members to dominate news cycles.
He said: “You see, after one or two weeks of this mini-dramatic activity because the way they scheme these things is that every week you will hear a breaking news story that ‘a gladiator has joined SDP’ so they will dominate the media space.
“But by the time the two weeks are over and they enjoy this momentary coverage, they will sit down and start fighting over who will be president or Vice-President. The reason El-Rufai did not go to the PDP is because he can’t dictate things there. But he told the world that the chairman of the SDP is his friend. So they went there because they want to dictate.”
