Special Adviser on Policy Communication to President Bola Tinubu, Daniel Bwala, has expressed confidence that the president will record a significant surge in votes from the South-East in the 2027 presidential election.

 

 

 

Speaking on Channels Television’s current affairs programme on Wednesday night, Bwala said Tinubu could secure up to two million votes from the region — a figure he claimed would be at least four to six times higher than what the president got in 2023. In the 2023 presidential election, Tinubu recorded 127,370 votes in the South-East.

 

“This is going to be like, I don’t know how to describe it, but let me take you zone by zone. You see the South-East, I guarantee you, President Bola Tinubu is going to get more than four times, if not six times, the value of the vote he got. He’ll get up to two million,” Bwala said.

 

 

 

 

When asked how the president would achieve the two million votes if Labour Party’s Peter Obi is on the ballot, Bwala argued that the region had a large voting population and claimed Obi’s influence had waned.

 

 

 

He said there were “lots of votes in the region” and alleged Obi would only serve as Director-General in the coalition-backed African Democratic Congress (ADC).

 

 

 

 

“As I tell you, he’s not going to get a ticket in any of the parties (ADC, PDP, LP). That is Peter Obi. The problem now is that he might not even get the vice presidential ticket from the way things are going. But whether Peter Obi is a ticket bearer of the party, he has lost more than 50% of his votes because they were not votes built on agenda and politics. They were built on rhetoric and division, and Nigerian people’s eyes are open.”

 

 

 

Bwala also argued that recent defections of southern governors to the APC and endorsements by governors in opposition parties would boost the president’s numbers and popularity in the South-East ahead of the election.