A former Commissioner for Information Tourism and Public Utilities in Imo State, Prof Vitalis Ajumbe, has asked the Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, to apologise to his Yobe State counterpart, Mai Mala Buni, over his (el-Rufai) comments on national television over the leadership crisis rocking the ruling All Progressives Congress.
Ajumbe, in a statement on Sunday which he personally issued in Owerri, the state capital, also accused el-Rufai of “misquoting” the constitution of the APC on the zoning of the National Chairman and Presidential positions.
According to him, the Kaduna State Governor spoke as though he had a presidential aspirant he was backing from the South, who might have promised him a running ticket.
The statement read, “He, Governor el-Rufai, misquoted the constitution of APC on the zoning of the National Chairman and Presidential positions.
“APC constitution says that the National Chairman and the President shall not come from the same zone. What it means here is an elected President and not a presidential candidate. Simplified that when the President is elected, the National Secretary from that zone which produced the President shall resign and the position goes to the other zone.
“I guess he may be projecting a Presidential aspirant from the South who may have agreed to make him his Vice Presidential candidate because H.E El-Rufai does not ‘bark’ in vain.
“El-Rufai was silent during the leadership of His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni, the Governor of Yobe State, and the chairman APC caretaker committee and I believe that he did not support him. For all I know, el-Rufai is not a member of the APC caretaker committee or its spokesperson and does not have their mandate to talk on the zoning of the Party’s positions or on such official issues.
“He used hard words on his brother governor H.E Mai Mala Buni as if they were on a boxing ring by using such harsh words which suggest that he was incompetent, selfish and intentionally tried to destroy APC.
“The court order of November 2021 he brandished on the television may be true, but Mai Mala Buni committee, made up of respected and responsible Nigerians, might have viewed it as inconsequential, maybe after finding out the source or may have acted on it. It could not have been cited as a tool of destruction without first hearing from either him or any of his committee members are still available.
“El-Rufai interview on Channels TV portrayed H.E Mai Mala Buni, the Governor of Yobe State, as being incompetent not minding the resultant damages it will cause him, especially in his State Yobe.
“The newly ‘appointed’ APC National Chairman should be careful with those ambitious Governors and persons who would want to appropriate him for their selfish interests. Some of them who lost out in Mai Mala Buni leadership have now regrouped to appropriate the new Leadership.
“The new Leader should endeavour to legitimise his position by summoning an emergency National Executive meeting of APC which has that power to ‘appoint’ or otherwise. The NEC also has the power to dissolve the entire committee and appoint a new one.”
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