Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State on Wednesday said governors of the All Progressives Congress discovered a grand plot between the lawyers of the embattled Chairman of the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Mai Mala Buni; and some fifth columnists to postpone the national convention of the party through a court injunction.
El-Rufai said the governors informed President Muhammadu Buhari of this plot on Sunday, reason why he ordered the immediate removal of Buni and the installment of Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger State as the acting chairman.
The Kaduna State governor said these on a television programme, adding that the plan was to postpone the convention till May which coincides with the deadline set by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for all political parties to conduct their presidential primaries.
He said the court injunction which was obtained in November last year, was never challenged by Buni. Rather, Buni’s lawyers agreed with the position of those who instituted the suit.
El-Rufai stated, “We got to know of a court order last year. It was obtained in November. A member of the party went to court to say there must not be a convention until his case against the party is disposed of which can take months or years and the lawyers of Buni went to court and agreed with the person and nobody knew about this order.
“It was 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 (convention) and we go ahead with the primaries we might likely have our candidates lose all their seats as the case in Zamfara.
“We reported to the President that no action had been taken on the order. He said the Niger state governor must take over on Monday and we should use whatever legal means necessary to make sure that the convention is delivered.”
El-Rufai added that at least 19 out of the 22 APC governors as well as the President were firmly behind Bello as the new caretaker chairman of the party.
He said there were about two governors who were still backing Buni, adding that they were the ones sponsoring fake news.
“Bello has the President’s full backing and the backing of at least 19 of the 23 progressive governors and deputy governors. There are some governors not fully on board and are the ones planting fake stories. Since Monday he took over, we have substantial progress,” said the governor.
