President Muhammadu Buhari at the weekend disappointed Governor Sani Bello of Bauchi State, Governor Masir El-Rufai of Kaduba State, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and other APC governors over the failed plot to illegal remove the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State last week. President Buhari was reported to have endorsed the removal of Buni as national chairman of the CECPC and the taking over of the leadership by Bello.
President Buni also denied endorsing any candidate for the APC national chairman to be elected at the party’s national convention in Abuja on March 26.
Governor El-Rufai had declared that Governor Buni who was on medical vacation in Dubai, will not return as APC CECPC national chairman. Akeredolu had also ridiculed governors supporting Governor Buni as ‘yahoo, yahoo’ governors.
The Attorney General of Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, had cautioned that the should be cautious of the implications of removing Buni from office illegally.
The implication that Malami warned about manifested when the INEC rejected the notice of emergency NEC meeting communicated to the commission by the emergent Bello leadership. the INEC had insisted on the legal time frame of 21 days of notice for a NEC meeting of political parties. The commission further insisted that letter of NEC meeting notice is only accepted from the document signed by the national chairman and national secretary of the party.
The INEC responses disqualified the Bello regime from conducting the APC national convention. The only option for the party is to rely on the earlier notice written by Governor Buni before the recent crisis.
Governor Buni had visited President Buhari in London, the United Kingdom (UK), to appeal that he be allowed to conduct the APC national convention in two weeks and handover to the new national chairman of the party.
Thereafter, a delegation said to comprise AGF and Minister of Justice Malami, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, among others, was said to have visited the president in UK to make strong case for Buni.
Another delegation including Governor Bello were also said to have gone to the UK to meet the president.
However, President Buhari had insisted on return of Buni as CECPC national chairman to conduct the national convention. The president had warned that the APC should learn from the lessons of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which crashed after 16 years in power because of similar internal crisis.