He knows that at the core of many Nigerians’ agitation for a better country lies a dark and sinister desire to be at the table where those whom they claim are destroying the country converge. Their clamour is not rooted in altruism nor is their yearning grounded in nationalistic fervour.
Early this month, Al Jazeera released the 45-minute-long edited version of its flagship discussion and interview programme, Head to Head, where Daniel Bwala, spokesperson and special adviser to President Bola Tinubu on policy communications, was interviewed by Medhi Hasan, a renowned journalist known for his deep and extensive research, rigorous fact-checking and dispassionate position on geopolitical issues. The interview was intended to assess how well Tinubu’s government has performed in fulfilling its campaign promises to the people, particularly in the areas of the economy, combating corruption, and security, and to highlight the government’s achievements, if any, since it came to power nearly three years ago.
However, what was supposed to be a moment and platform for the image maker of an unpopular government to do a sincere stock taking and give honest accounts of his principal and his government, turned out to be an embarrassing spectacle of epic proportions. Aside from doing a terrible job of defending the government he serves, his own past and the hauntingly terrifying things he said about the man he now works for when he was his vocal and fierce critic, which Hasan used in interrogating him, made the entire interview a hard and tough one for many to watch.
But Bwala’s performance is only symptomatic of a deeper and fundamental problem which lies at the heart of Nigerian politics and governance. How the abject lack of scruple, honour and self-respect has become the defining traits and attributes of those in the corridors of power. It further exposes the underbelly of Nigeria’s socio-economic and political make-up. Hasan’s topical and pertinent questions on some of Tinubu’s appointments, including that of Bwala, and how his policies, especially the removal of subsidy on petrol, have impacted Nigerians negatively and tanked the economy considerably were met by deflection and prevarication and in some cases outright denial even when there are strong publicly available data and easily verifiable facts to back up these claims.
When asked why Tinubu appointed Atiku Baguda, a former henchman of former military head of state, Sanni Abacha, who was said to have laundered billions of dollars for the late dictator, as the minister of budget planning, Bwala’s response was at best unconvincing, and at the worst disturbingly embarrassing. When asked about the bullion vans that were driven into Tinubu’s house on the eve of the presidential election in 2019, the controversy that surrounded Tinubu’s source of wealth, his drug trafficking case and his age, Bwala resorted to cringeworthy whataboutism and denial. This was largely the case throughout the session with Hasan.
Aisha Osori, a prominent Nigerian lawyer, author, and Director at the Open Society Foundations’ Ideas Workshop, who sat through the interview as she was one of the panelists gave a damning and unpalatable account of what transpired during the interview, particularly the body language and response Bwala gave to some of the questions asked. She wrote: “Within minutes, I felt a chill. Then I felt hot. Then back to cold…hundreds of pinprick-like sensations over my body…a semi-hallucinatory haze upon me.” She described the whole experience as “embarrassment, shame, kunya.” Further highlighting the absurdity of some of Bwala’s responses, Osori recalled when he was asked repeatedly “why, why, why?” and responded: “because Y has a long tail and two branches.”
What made the whole situation even more disconcerting is the fact that Hasan who is known for his pugnacious and forceful style of questioning his interviewee was not at his feisty, brutal and aggressive best. He did not go for the jugular like he always does with guests. He was genial and unbelligerent. This may not be unconnected to his realisation that Bwala is a man who is caught in the dark Web of his own hypocrisy, a man who has found himself in a hole and has chosen to continue digging, hence he decided that kicking a man while he is down may be overkill. He noticed quickly early on in the interview that Bwala is not equipped with the intellectual bandwidth needed to pull himself out of the hole he found himself in and his attempt to trivialise and downplay sensitive and important matters like the killings of innocent Nigerians only made his emptiness palpable to Hasan.
Some claim the session was more about cross-examining Bwala than interviewing him because of how Hasan focused on Bwala’s past and used them to interrogate his contradictions, and that Hasan only had an upper hand and controlled the narrative because the interview centred on integrity and credibility rather than policy. The question to ask this set of people is, if the credibility of a government official is not established and ascertained, how then can the people trust that their commentaries and assertions about the policies of the government they speak for are not lies?
Bwala is not alone in this moving from vocal activist and fierce opposition stalwart to the ruling party shill pipeline. The total rejection of one’s previous strongly held creed, belief and position on certain issues and persons and doing a volte face to embrace the same once vehemently opposed actions and castigated personalities has become an all too familiar shenanigan in Nigeria’s political space. Tinubu is fully aware of this. He knows that at the core of many Nigerians’ agitation for a better country lies a dark and sinister desire to be at the table where those whom they claim are destroying the country converge. Their clamour is not rooted in altruism nor is their yearning grounded in nationalistic fervour.
Daniel Bwala’s Mehdi Hasan interview was essentially an exaggerated display of the idiosyncrasies of Nigerian leadership—its endemic self-interest, opportunism, and flippancy—as well as the buffoonery that usually accompanies them. We will miss a great opportunity for critical national appraisal, introspection and self-examination if we make it about Bwala alone.
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