Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has revealed how the ousted Chairman of the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Governor Mai Mala Buni plotted with his allies to scuttle the March 26 National Convention of the ruling party.

El-Rufai accused the Yobe State governor of using his lawyers to obtain a court injunction against the party so that it could postpone its convention.

The Kaduna State governor stated that when they discovered this, the governors informed President Muhammadu Buhari about Buni’s clandestine plot.

He said it was at this point that the President ordered the replacement of Buni with Governor Abubakar Bello as caretaker chairman.

El-Rufai foreclosed the return of Buni as chairman. He said: “I can assure you that even when he (Buni) returns to the country, he will handle no position. The National Secretary, I believe, the CECPC has taken action against him already. The CECPC has taken a decision on him. The CECPC will explain this decision in due time.”

El-Rufai made the revelation while speaking on Channels TV.

His words: “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. 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.”

The governor stated that 19 out of 22 APC governors are in support of Buni’s removal.

According to him, “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 made substantial progress.”

The Star