BUNI GOES BACK TO DAMATURU

Yobe governor returns home with presidential applause, writes Ahmed Abu

For Mai Mala Buni, the ever-calm governor of Yobe State, last Saturday must have been a very happy day as he got a massive presidential endorsement for his work for his party, All Progressives Congress, in the last 18 months.

Mounting the rostrum at the Eagles Square in Abuja on a day of intense politicking and horse-trading that attended the extra-ordinary convention of the party, President Muhammadu Buhari delivered a speech that acknowledged the achievements of the Buni-led Caretaker Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee, commending it for a job well done.  

“I want to congratulate us all for being part of this history-making event and to especially appreciate the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, which has been on a rescue mission, under the leadership of His Excellency, the Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, for successfully piloting the affairs of the party in the last 18 months and organizing this convention to elect a new National Working Committee that will take over from the Caretaker Committee,” the president said.

Buhari said he was glad that the party under Buni had bounced back to life with the reconciliation of several key and critical stakeholders and groups, who had hitherto left the party or were on the verge of leaving the party.

“The reconciliation process gave the aggrieved stakeholders a true sense of belonging and assurance,” the president said.

Buni had come on board in June 2020 when several court suits and orders made the position of the former national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, untenable. A succession crisis had erupted, consuming the entire national working committee. With that also came an unease that threatened the cohesion of the party.

Party elders, therefore, turned to the president and asked him to shun his aloofness and show more interest in its affairs. He subsequently gave his nod to the Yobe State governor to head the rescue mission of revamping the wobbling APC. Buni’s task was clear, reconcile the aggrieved and prepare the ground for a national convention that would produce a new leadership that would position the party for electoral exploits in 2023.

The president said last Saturday that the Yobe State governor had delivered spectacularly well. He noted that the party had grown phenomenally from 11million to 41 million members with the new entrants including three sitting governors, a deputy governor, senators, members of the House of Representatives and state assemblies, and other key officials from opposition parties who defected along with millions of their supporters.

“I am impressed to learn that the membership registration and revalidation exercise undertaken by the caretaker committee, has recorded over 41 million members,” he said, adding, “This has proved that we are indeed Nigeria’s leading and largest political party.  It also exhibits our numerical strength and the potential to win elections at all given times fairly and squarely.”

According to Buhari, “The successful conduct of the ward, local, and state congresses, the purchase of the National Secretariat, which was graciously named after me, and the review of the constitution among others, are no doubt tremendous achievements recorded by the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee.”

It is significant that these acknowledgements came directly from the mouth of the president without whose tenacious support the Yobe State governor’s momentous contributions would have been consigned to the dark ages of the party’s history.

A couple of weeks before, a contrived leadership crisis had emerged in the caretaker committee. A clique in the party’s governors’ forum had, in the name of the president, announced Buni’s removal and his replacement by Sani Bello, the governor of Niger State, accusing him of an attempt to scuttle the convention he had been planning for about 17 months.

The palace coup was hatched at a time Buni was abroad for medicals, leaving him with no opportunity to defend himself. Thanks to a fair-minded Buhari who granted him an audience in faraway London and listened to his own side of the story.

Before then, sponsored hack writers had filled the mainstream and social media with salacious stories of how Buni had abandoned his state duties in Damaturu and gone to sit down in Abuja to mind the party’s problems at the detriment of Yobe people’s welfare.

That he was able to push aside all these distractions and remained focused on his assignments is a testimony to his capacity to multitask and deliver his mandate in spite of the harsh operating environment.

Yes, the assignment in Abuja must have tasked Buni and distracted him a bit from his state duties but with the party’s job done and dusted he could now return fully to Damaturu with pride that he had helped to restore his ailing party to very good health, an accomplishment the Yobe people too would, no doubt, be proud of.

Abu, a political analyst, writes from Abuja