El-Rufai: How Buni’s lawyers helped secure ‘nuclear weapon’ to destroy APC convention

Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna, says the lawyers of Mai Mala Buni, Yobe state governor, colluded with a petitioner to “destroy” the national convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

On Monday, Abubakar Sani Bello, governor of Niger, took over as the APC caretaker committee chairman — replacing Buni who was appointed to the position in June 2020.

Over the past weeks, there have been internal wranglings in the party over the arrangements for its national convention.

TheCable had reported that the Yobe governor had perfected plans to scuttle the party’s national convention in order to remain as caretaker chairman.

Buni and John Akpanudoedehe, national secretary of the APC caretaker committee, were said to have used a third party to obtain a court order temporarily restraining the ruling party from holding its convention until a substantive suit has been heard and determined.

Speaking on Wednesday in an interview with Channels Television, el-Rufai said the court order was a “hidden nuclear weapon” that would have hampered the party’s chances in the 2023 general election.

“This court order was obtained in November. A member of the party went to court to say that there must be no convention until his case against the party is disposed of, which can take months or years,” el-Rufai said.

“The lawyer of the party and the lawyers of Mai Mala Buni went to court and agreed with the petitioner and got this order. Nobody knew about this order.

“It was never brought to the caretaker committee. It was sort of hidden as a hidden nuclear weapon to destroy the convention, which further made us believe that there are fifth columnists in the party that want to bring this party down, because if we don’t have an elected executive committee of the party and we go ahead to have primaries, we are likely to have our candidates lose all their seats as we saw in Zamfara state.

“When we reported to the president and said no action (referring to the convention planning) had been taken, he said governor Abubakar Sani Bello must take over on Monday and we should use whatever legal means necessary to make sure that this convention is delivered.

“It was the president’s order to us as governors. He (referring to Niger governor) has the president’s full backing and the backing of at least 19 of the APC governors.

‘There are some governors who are not fully on board. They are the ones planting fake stories that this one has resigned and that one has not resigned. You get all kinds of stories on social media.”