Yobe rejects Bulama as national secretary

The leadership of Yobe State chapter of the APC has expressed dissatisfaction with the choice of Arch. Bulama Waziri as the party’s national secretary.

The state chapter of the party in statement signed by the secretary, Abubakar Bakabe, said it was optimistic that the leadership would not allow such “brazen act of injustice to prevail and set a dangerous precedence in the affairs of the party.”

The statement read: “Our attention has been drawn to a media publication on the purported attempt to foist Arch. Bulama as national secretary through abuse and contravention of the norms, procedures and established processes of the party.

“The party in its wisdom deliberately adopted a zoning policy to accommodate and give every part of Nigeria a sense of belonging and participation, hence, it zoned its national offices to the six geo-political zones.

“At the expiration of the first tenure, Mai Mala Buni was re-elected for a second term of office in 2018 as national secretary until his resignation when he was elected executive governor of Yobe State in 2019.

“Following the established precedence and norms of the party, it is only right for Yobe State to produce an acting national secretary  for the party pending the next convention, as it was in the case of Kwara State, when  Lai Mohammed was appointed as honourable minister and was replaced by Bolaji Abdullahi as the party’s national publicity secretary.

“Similarly, when Abdullahi defected to the PDP, he was replaced by yet another Kwaran,  Mr Lanre Issa-Onilu for the same office. This has remained the norm and procedure in the party.

“The purported report suggesting Arch. Waziri  Bulama as a replacement to Governor Mai Mala Buni for the office of the national secretary gives us a great concern as to why some people suddenly want to change the laid down procedures of the APC and to short change Yobe State in the national political equation of the party.

“It is equally disheartening that as a major stakeholder of the party and one of the leading states that consistently produced mass votes to the party should be treated with such wanton recklessness and in flagrant abuse to the existing procedure and practice.

“It has become quite necessary to draw the attention of our great party not allow some forces filled with personal and selfish agenda to draw the party to the path of self-destruction. We demand that what is due to the state should be given to the state in the interest of peace and unity of our great party.”

Last Wednesday, the APC National Working Committee (NWC) approved new national officers, including Arch. Waziri Bulama as acting national secretary; Sen. Abiola Ajimobi as deputy national Chairman (South), and Mr Paul Chukwuma as national auditor.

The embattled APC National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole while fielding questions from reporters after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, said both Senators Ibrahim Gaidam and Kashim Shettima had agreed on the candidacy of Arc. Bulama when they were governors of Yobe and Borno states respectively.