Daniel Bwala, President Bola Tinubu’s Special Advisor on Policy Communication, has warned the All Progressives Congress, or APC, to be cautious of Borno South Senator Ali Ndume, claiming that his spirit and soul are already with the opposition.
Bwala made this claim during the Sunday episode of Channels Television’s Politics Today show.
“Let me tell you today and I want everybody to hear, especially the chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Abdullahi Ganduje. Senator Ali Ndume’s spirit and soul are with the coalition; it is his body that is in APC. He is already going.
“It is better the way (Nasir) el-Rufai did: just say I am leaving. You’d give more honour and credit to el-Rufai that he didn’t feel he could stay and be a snitch,” Bwala said.
Ndume, the longest-serving member of the National Assembly since 1999, says Tinubu should be concerned if former President Muhammadu Buhari is not on his side.
Ndume criticised Tinubu’s declaration of emergency rule in Rivers on Friday, asking the president to instead declare emergency rule on security and the economy. This came just hours after former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar led some opposition leaders to visit Buhari in Kaduna.
On Thursday, March 20, 2025, ahead of the general elections in 2027, opposition leader Atiku, former Anambra governor Peter Obi, former Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai, and others announced a coalition to unseat incumbent Tinubu, whose administration has been accused of mismanaging the economy, resulting in an unprecedented cost of living and all-time high inflation. This marked the culmination of talks about an inter-party alliance.
According to reports, the alliance is relying on the size of the votes that Atiku and Obi received in the most recent poll.
In 2023, Atiku of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party’s Obi came second and third, respectively, with combined votes of over 12 million, more than four million above the total votes recorded by Tinubu, who was declared the winner by electoral umpire INEC.
READ ALSO: Ndume urges Tinubu to declare state of emergency on security, economy
With a litany of court cases arising from intra-party squabbles and protracted leadership crises rocking the PDP and the LP, as well as the alleged maltreatment of some APC members, politicians in the three parties seem to have made the SDP a darling.
Already, El-Rufai and some of his foot soldiers have joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
There have been talks about Atiku and Obi reportedly making moves to join the SDP but neither politician has made such a decision known officially.
