Mai Mala Buni, the governor of Yobe state, has denied reports claiming that he is about to leave the All Progressives Congress (APC) to join the opposition coalition ahead of 2027 elections.
Buni’s reaction comes on the heels of moves by opposition politicians, including former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar to form a coalition that will unseat the ruling party in the next elections.
In a statement issued on Saturday by Mamman Mohammed, the director-general of press and media affairs in the office of Yobe governor, Buni said his rumoured plan to leave the APC is the “the wishful thinking” of those behind it.
According to a widely circulated text message, Buni and four other APC governors had made plans to join Atiku’s alliance and defect to the opposition PDP before the elections in 2027.
However, Mohammed said the widely shared message was an “erroneous assumptions, unjustified imagination, and unfounded fabrications that had nothing to do with reality”.
He said the text’s author had never been close enough to Buni to suspect that he might try to forecast the governor’s political trajectory.
“Buni is no ordinary member of APC; he is not just an APC governor. He is APC in all ramifications, with APC flowing in his veins,” the statement reads.
“His contributions to building APC as a two-term National Secretary and National Chairman who chaired the party’s convention committee makes him unique and whose imagination of leaving the party cannot be speculated.
“The author and his paymasters must have been intrigued by Buni’s political acumen and wished they had someone like the governor. “It must be wishful thinking.”
