Yesterday’s Critics, Today’s Interpreters: The political acrobatics of Reno Omokri and Daniel Bwala

These two men once warned Nigeria about Tinubu with the urgency of a fire alarm.

Now they explain him.

Tomorrow… who knows?

There are many professions in Nigeria.

Doctors save lives. Lawyers argue cases. Engineers build bridges. Teachers shape minds.

Then there is another very profitable profession that rarely appears in university brochures: Professional Political Conversion, or PPC.

Entry requirements: strong memory loss and excellent flexibility.

It is a delicate craft that requires speed, flexibility, and the rare ability to forget yesterday with the confidence of a man who has never met it before.  Two of the most hardworking practitioners of this noble trade are Reno Omokri and Daniel Bwala.  They are not brothers by blood.  But politically they are identical twins.  Same reflexes. Same instincts. Same astonishing ability to perform ideological somersaults without pulling a single muscle.  If politics were the Olympics, these two would represent Nigeria in synchronised ideological gymnastics.  Gold medal guaranteed.

Once upon a time, both men were among the loudest critics of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Their criticism was not mild disagreement. It was a full time occupation. They spoke with the urgency of men trying to warn a nation about a looming storm.  Tinubu, according to them then, symbolised everything wrong with Nigerian politics.  They did not whisper this.  They declared it loudly.  Morning.  Afternoon.  Night.  Sometimes before breakfast.  Their timelines were not timelines. They were emergency broadcasts.  Then power moved.  And suddenly, the miracle happened.  The same Tinubu who once inspired alarm quietly transformed into a misunderstood statesman who merely required… context.  Ah yes.  Context.  The most overworked word in Nigerian politics.  If words had labour unions, context would have gone on strike by now.  The drama reached its peak when Daniel Bwala appeared on Al Jazeera across journalist Mehdi Hasan.  What Nigerians witnessed that day was not just an interview.  It was the official burial ceremony of the word “context.”  Context was stretched.  Context was twisted.  Context was kneaded like dough.  Statements that once existed clearly on the internet suddenly required archaeological interpretation.  Watching the exchange felt less like an interview and more like a man negotiating with his own previous statements.

At some point it felt like the real debate was not between Mehdi Hasan and Bwala, but between Bwala and Bwala.

Meanwhile, somewhere on social media, Reno Omokri continues to run what looks like a political rehabilitation centre.  Few Nigerians criticised Tinubu with the stamina Omokri once displayed. His timelines were a permanent lecture series.  He even went overseas to protest against a man he called a drug baron.  His posts arrived like daily briefings on why the country should be worried.  But the Nigerian internet is a stubborn place.  It remembers.  Screenshots do not retire. Tweets do not relocate. Videos do not develop amnesia.  The internet keeps receipts the way Nigerian mothers keep plastic containers.  Nothing is ever truly thrown away.  So every time a new explanation emerges about why yesterday should be reinterpreted, the internet quietly opens an old file and says,  “Sir, please explain this one.”  And that is the problem with building a political career in the age of digital memory.  Your past does not disappear.  It waits.  Quietly.  Patiently.  Like an unpaid electricity bill.  Sooner or later, it arrives.

In Nigerian politics, there are weather forecasters.  Men who always know which direction power is blowing.  But Omokri and Bwala are not just forecasters.  They are wind turbines.  Wherever the wind blows, they generate electricity.

In Nigerian politics there are also chameleons.  Creatures famous for changing colours to survive.  But even chameleons would watch these two with admiration.

Because Omokri and Bwala have upgraded the technology.

They do not merely change colour.  They change history.  Yesterday they warned Nigerians about Tinubu.  Today they explain Tinubu to Nigerians.  Tomorrow they may explain why Nigerians misunderstood their warnings about Tinubu.  Yesterday they were enemies. Today they are translators. Tomorrow… who knows?  This is professional ideological gymnastics.  If opportunism were a university course, these two would be visiting professors.  PhD in Strategic U-Turns.  Masters in Political Acrobatics.  Advanced diploma in That Is Not What I Meant.  Somewhere in the cloud, their old tweets sit quietly like retired soldiers.  Every now and then one of them wakes up, stretches, and whispers,  But oga, you said the opposite in 2022.

In another country, flipping positions this fast would be embarrassing. In Nigeria, it’s prime-time entertainment.

Omokri and Bwala are headline acts in a circus where the elephants never forget… and the audience keeps receipts.

In Nigeria it simply qualifies you for the next television appearance.

Professional praise contractors.  Government interpreters.  Certified defenders of whatever the current script requires.

But in the grand circus of Nigerian politics, Reno Omokri and Daniel Bwala are not just performers.

They are headline acts.

They warned Nigerians about Bola Ahmed Tinubu.  Now they explain him.  Tomorrow they may explain why Nigerians misunderstood their warnings.

And that is the strange beauty of Nigerian politics. Positions change. Narratives evolve. Enemies become interpreters.

But there is one stubborn institution that refuses to cooperate with political acrobatics.

The internet.

It remembers the tweets.

It remembers the interviews.

It remembers the warnings.

And every now and then it quietly opens the archive and asks a very simple question:

“Oga, you said the opposite in 2022.”

In many countries that question would end a political career.

In Nigeria, it simply signals the beginning of the next television appearance.

When you want to eat shit, you begin by eating your shame,by swallowing your words of truth and integrity and denying them in exchange for wealth and position.