Presidential aide Daniel Bwala has disclosed that Al Jazeera issued a private apology over his March 2026 appearance on the network's Head to Head programme, hosted by Mehdi Hasan. Bwala said the TV station refused to make the apology public — a decision that led him to file a defamation lawsuit against the broadcaster in England.
Bwala's disclosure on Morayo Afolabi-Brown's show
Bwala revealed the details during an interview on Morayo Afolabi-Brown's show, published on YouTube on Wednesday. The original Head to Head episode had drawn widespread attention after Hasan confronted Bwala with past statements criticising President Bola Tinubu during the period Bwala was publicly supporting Atiku Abubakar.
Al Jazeera's private apology
According to Bwala, the broadcaster acknowledged that it had breached its own editorial standards by failing to inform him beforehand that part of the conversation would be used to question his credibility. "The substance of the apology was that they should have told me that part of what they discussed with me was a talking point, that they were also going to interrogate me on my credibility for supporting the person I had attacked before. By their own ethics, they ought to have told me that, but they said they were sorry they didn't," Bwala said.
When Bwala pushed for the apology to be made public, the network declined, telling him it would damage its credibility and affect other programmes on the Al Jazeera platform. "They apologised to me privately. I said they should put it on social media. They said they will not put it on social media, it will affect their credibility, because it's not just them, but their other programmers at the Al Jazeera network too," Bwala added.
Editing and defamation claims
Bwala further alleged that Al Jazeera selectively edited the footage to portray him unfavourably. He said the full recording ran for one hour and 30 minutes, but only 49 minutes were published, with portions showing him fact-checking Hasan and receiving applause from the studio audience removed. He also alleged that Hasan deployed a technique he described as "cut and joined" — playing old clips of his past remarks without context, and denying him the opportunity to respond on air. Crucially, he said his opening caveat, in which he stated he would decline questions that strayed from the interview's agreed scope, was cut from the broadcast.
"He removed that part because if he'd left it in, anyone watching would understand that I had already answered the question upfront, and that my later denials were a response to his repeated bringing it up. That's where the unethical conduct of a professional issue arose," Bwala stated.
Legal action in England
Bwala said he also sought the perspective of British broadcaster Piers Morgan, whom he reached through an intermediary, and who reportedly agreed the network's conduct was improper. With the network unwilling to publicly acknowledge its error, Bwala said he had no choice but to escalate the matter legally. "When they apologised, I said no, put it on social media. They refused. So I instructed my lawyers in England to go to court. The case is currently in court," Bwala concluded.
