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| Mr. Bwala with Mr. Hassan. |
Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Communication, has accused Al Jazeera of practising what he called ‘opposition-style journalism’ after his interview on “Head to Head” took him to task over his past comments against President Bola Tinubu.
On the
programme hosted by Mehdi Hasan, which examined Tinubu’s administration under
the theme “Nigeria: ‘Renewed Hope’ or ‘Hopelessness’?”, Bwala was confronted
with past quotes, video clips, and statements from his time in the opposition –
when he was aligned with former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.
The
interview went viral, to which Bwala responded in a statement.
In the
statement, Bwala stressed that he remained “prepared to appear before any
interviewer, anywhere in the world, any day and at any time, to defend this
government and its policies.”
He said
‘Head to Head’ contacted him requesting an interview to challenge Tinubu’s
government on security, the economy, and corruption.
However, he
noted, “Nowhere in our almost six months of communication did they mention that
they were going to challenge my past. If that had been their plan, ethically
and professionally, they were supposed to inform me so I could prepare my
response.
“But that’s
okay, ethically, that is on them, not on me. I refused to swallow the pill of
Mehdi’s ‘opposition research-style journalism,’ and even today, if you
carefully compare what he read as quotes from organisations and groups, you
will see that many were inaccurate and some were outright fake news.
“But I will
leave that for another day. As for what I said about President Tinubu in the
past, I am glad those were things I said when I was in the opposition saddle
with such zeal. It is all politics.
“Half of
Donald Trump’s cabinet is made up of people who once spoke against him, and
quite a number of people in our own cabinet also spoke against President Tinubu
in the past. Those things do not bother him if you care to know.
The majority
of the naysayers are members of the opposition and their sympathisers. It does
not bother me one bit.
Their
temporary excitement over the interview has not lasted and will not last,
because it does not take away their obvious problem of lack of vision, mission
in conducting and managing a political party; yet they seek to manage Nigeria.
“Clearly
they have no path to victory and no alternative policies or program for the
Nigerian people. And if they say they do, they can as well go to head to head
and be interrogated on that; as the saying in Hausa goes ‘Ga fili Ga doki'”.
Vanguard
News.
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