In an interview from 0:53 on Symfoni TV, Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Policy Communication, made a striking argument about the true nature of Peter Obi’s relationship with his passionate supporter base, contending that far from leading the movement, Obi was actually being directed and controlled by it.
Bwala laid out what he described as the fundamental test of genuine leadership and influence. “If I test, say these are your followers, it means you have influence over them. It means you can say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t think this part we should go to,’ and then they will obey you because they believe in you,” he explained, setting up the standard against which he intended to measure Obi.
He then argued that the reality of Obi’s situation was the precise opposite. “These people control him. He doesn’t control them,” he stated bluntly.
Bwala pointed to a specific incident during the 2023 election campaign as evidence, recalling a moment when Obi had been called upon to rein in supporters who had been directing personal abuse at people. “During the 2023 election when they were abusing people’s father and mother and he was called upon to speak to them, at first he issued one statement,” he said.
The response from his own supporters, Bwala claimed, was swift and intimidating. “They started threatening him: ‘Concentrate on this thing. Forget,'” he recalled, alleging that Obi had immediately retreated under pressure from the very people he was supposed to lead.
He noted that from that point forward, Obi had adopted a carefully evasive posture whenever the subject came up. “From that time till the election, when you ask him a question like that, he will say, ‘When people are angry, you don’t tell them what to do,'” Bwala said, before delivering his verdict. “That is not followership,” he concluded, arguing that a leader unwilling or unable to correct his own supporters when they go wrong had forfeited any genuine claim to leadership….Read_More…