By VITUS OZOKE, PhD

There are bad interviews, embarrassing interviews, and then there are interviews so utterly disastrous that they should be placed in the museum of political absurdities. Daniel Bwala’s recent appearance on Al Jazeera’s Head-to-Head with Mehdi Hasan certainly falls into the third category.

When a government spokesperson appears on international television, he represents more than just his personal opinions and reputation. He carries the credibility of an entire country. That’s why Daniel Bwala’s interview felt less like an interview and more like a national embarrassment, sparking a huge reaction across Nigerian online communities. It was not merely a train wreck; it was a slow-motion philosophical crisis about the meaning of truth in Nigerian politics.

For nearly an hour, viewers watched a man twist himself into rhetorical knots, deny his own previous statements, and deploy the tired playbook of political spin that has become the hallmark of an incompetent and corrupt Nigerian government. A man who is well-paid by the Nigerian taxpayer sat calmly under studio lights while his past statements were read back to him – only to insist, again and again, with a straight face, that reality must be mistaken. If this was meant to defend Nigeria’s government, it had the opposite effect. It exposed the moral bankruptcy of its political class. What viewers saw was not a confident defense of government policy. Instead, it was a troubling display of evasiveness, contradiction, and rhetorical gymnastics. It was painful to watch.

Mehdi Hasan didn’t do a hatchet job; he simply confronted Bwala with his past statements about Nigeria’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Before entering government, Bwala had been a strong critic of Tinubu. During the program, Hasan cited a statement attributed to Bwala in 2023, claiming that Tinubu had established a militia to corruptly influence the election.

Hasan put it directly: “You said Tinubu started a militia to sway the election corruptly.” It was not a subtle claim. It was not an ambiguous claim. It was the sort of allegation that normally follows a politician around like a persistent ghost. Bwala’s response was breathtaking in its simplicity. “Tinubu didn’t create a militia, and I never said that.” Simple. Elegant. Surgical. Reality, apparently, had been misinformed. And he said that with such practiced ease that he seemed believable – for a minute. What truly unsettled many Nigerians who watched the interview was not the evasiveness itself. It was the ease with which it was deployed. The casual confidence of a system that has long stopped worrying about its own fibs and contradictions.

Daniel Bwala may have stopped worrying about his integrity and credibility, but Mehdi Hasan has not. He produced additional past comments about suspicious cash movements in bullion vans linked to Tinubu and claims that Bwala had once said he was threatened for criticizing him. Again, the same response: “I never said that.” One could almost admire the discipline. Consistency, after all, is rare in Nigerian politics. Once is denial. Twice is evasive. Repeated over and over on camera while the receipts are being read back to you, it becomes something far worse: a spectacle of political self-erasure.

The uncomfortable truth is that millions of Nigerians remember those statements. Many were made on television and social media during the 2023 election cycle. Before he became a government spokesperson, Bwala spoke with the moral certainty of a man convinced he was on the right side of history. Now he speaks with the composure of someone determined to convince the world that history itself has been misquoted. Watching Daniel Bwala deny Daniel Bwala so bluntly felt like watching a man att’mpt to gaslight an entire nation in real time.

Perhaps the most revealing line of the entire interview was when Bwala tried to explain the shocking reversal between his past and present positions. His explanation was textbook: “The job of opposition is to oppose.” There it was. And just like that, a whole philosophy of Nigerian political life was summed up in a single sentence. Truth is not always truth. Facts are not always facts. They are just temporary tools, useful only until power shifts. No reflection. No admitting exaggeration. Not even a pursuit of intellectual consistency. Just the elastic spine of power.

Just the casual confession that political truth, in Nigeria’s elite circles, is nothing more than a costume – something you wear depending on which side of power you occupy. So that yesterday’s accusation becomes today’s denial, and yesterday’s outrage becomes today’s propaganda. The only constant is loyalty to whoever holds the keys to the state. Or as Nigerians say, Nigeria’s political morality is dictated by whichever direction the stomach faces.

If Bwala’s interview had merely revealed hypocrisy, that would have been embarrassing enough. But it went further. At one point, Bwala claimed that insecurity in Nigeria is not worsening, arguing that the government is managing the situation. To millions of Nigerians living with kidnappings, banditry, terrorism, and economic hardship, such statements seem disconnected from reality. International viewers watching the exchange could not ignore the growing divide between lived experience and official narrative. That gap – between what Nigerians endure and what their leaders say – is the true story of the country today.

What made the interview especially hard and painful to watch was the calm precision of Mehdi Hasan’s questioning. Call it the Mehdi Hasan effect. Hasan did not shout. He did not grandstand. He simply pointed out and read back Bwala’s past statements to him, then asked a straightforward question: “Did you say this or not?” Each time the answer was the same: denial, deflection, or semantic escape. And each time, Daniel Bwala’s credibility – and by extension, the government he represents – faded a little more.

Throughout the interview, Bwala showed the typical traits of a modern political spokesperson. Questions were not directly answered but deflected into orbit. Facts were met with the calm indifference usually reserved for conspiracy theories. Reality itself seemed to hover somewhere in the background, like an uninvited guest no one wanted to acknowledge. It was more of a performance than an interview – a piece of political theater where the script called for the spokesperson to defend the government at all costs, even if that meant quietly assassinating logic along the way.

It would be reassuring to think that Daniel Bwala’s performance was an exception. It was not. Therefore, focusing only on Daniel Bwala risks missing the bigger picture. Bwala did not create this culture of political flexibility. He simply embodies it. Bwala is a perfect reflection of Nigeria’s political system, which has adopted a style of public discussion in which truth is negotiable, ideology is adaptable, memory is optional and disposable, contradiction carries no consequences, and accountability is treated like a contagious disease. Today’s critic becomes tomorrow’s spokesperson, and yesterday’s outrage turns into today’s talking point. Meanwhile, integrity quietly leaves the room.

The most frustrating part of the interview wasn’t that the questions were tough. Tough questions are inevitable when talking about governance in a country facing serious challenges. The tragedy is that moments like this could be used as opportunities — chances to show transparency, humility, and honest communication with a global audience. Instead, many viewers felt they saw a performance that reinforced the worst stereotypes of political rhetoric.

The real tragedy is that Nigeria isn’t lacking in talented minds. Its universities, diaspora, and civil society are full of people who can articulate the country's challenges honestly and intelligently. However, when it was time to represent Nigeria to a global audience, the government picked a man who spent half the interview denying his own words. That decision speaks volumes.

The tragedy isn't that Daniel Bwala performed poorly. It’s that he performed exactly as Nigeria’s political system trained him to. And until that system changes, scenes like this – painful, embarrassing, and deeply revealing – will keep playing out on the world stage. Nigeria deserves better. Not just better policies, but better defenders of those policies. Because when a government’s voice loses credibility, the damage goes far beyond one interview. It becomes not just a national problem but an international one.

When you participate in that level of performative political theater on an international stage, the audience isn’t just domestic loyalists. It includes international journalists who keep receipts. It includes viewers who can search old statements in seconds. And it includes millions of Nigerians who remember exactly what was said during the fevered months of the 2023 election. So, when those statements suddenly disappear into the fog of “I never said that,” the spectacle becomes hard to ignore.

In the end, Daniel Bwala may have succeeded in one unintended way. He gave a masterclass – not in persuasion, but in the strange mechanics of Nigerian political survival. Convictions are disposable. Statements are reversible. And the past, it seems, is negotiable. But the internet remembers. And so do Nigerians. That’s why the interview will probably live on – not as a proud defense of government policy, but as a cautionary tale about what happens when a political system becomes so comfortable with spin that it forgets the world can still recognize it.

•Dr. Vitus Ozoke is a lawyer, human rights activist, and public affairs analyst based in the United States. He writes on politics, governance, and the moral costs of leadership failure in Africa.

Update news