Tinubu, El-Rufa’i’s Ambition For 2023 Will Not Disrupt APC — Gov. Buni

Yobe state governor, Mai Mala Buni has come out to say that the ambition of Malam Nasiru El-Rufa’i and Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu to be president in 2023 would not destabilize the ruling party, All Progressive Congress (APC).

Having his say in a recent interview on the BBC Hausa today, he said the party will still remain united since President Muhammadu Buhari has already laid a solid foundation for the party via good governance.

According to him, power does not have to rotate to the other geo-political regions in 2023 because doing so would restrict the opportunity for the people to make choices.

He added that Yobe was a united state and every suggestion that his government was influenced by external persons is false.

His words, “It will further strengthen the party, this is because Buhari has laid a solid foundation in the party through his good governance.”

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The All Progressives Congress (APC) is a political party in Nigeria, formed on 6 February 2013 in anticipation of the 2015 elections. APC candidate Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential election by almost 2.6 million votes. Incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat on 31 March. This was the first time in Nigeria’s political history that an opposition political party unseated a governing party in a general election and one in which power transferred peacefully from one political party to another. In addition, the APC won the majority of seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the 2015 elections, though it fell shy of winning a super-majority to override the ability of the opposition People’s Democratic Party to block legislation.

Formed in February 2013, the party is the result of a merger of Nigeria’s three biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP – a faction of then ruling People’s Democratic Party. The resolution was signed by Tom Ikimi, who represented the ACN; Senator Annie Okonkwo on behalf of the APGA; Ibrahim Shekarau, the Chairman of ANPP’s Merger Committee; and Garba Shehu, the Chairman of CPC’s Merger Committee. Ironically, less than 2 years before the party’s historic victory in the 2015 elections, Messrs. Annie Okonkwo, Tom Ikimi and Ibrahim Shekarau resigned from the party and joined the PDP.

Prior to the formation of the APC and its victory in the 2015 elections, Muhammadu Buhari had previously contested (and subsequently lost) the Nigerian presidential elections of 2003 and 2007 as the presidential nominee of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the 2011 Nigerian presidential election as the presidential nominee of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).