MAI MALA BUNI: The silent achiever

“Political differences must never cause hate and chaos among the good people of the state. We remain brothers and sisters in spite of our political differences. These differences should not be used to divide us; we should therefore play the game peacefully according to rule” – Governor Mai Mala Buni


Call him, the Silent Achiever; Call him the Lion of the Sahel; Call him a symbol of peace, you are right in all ramifications in describing the ebullient and easy going Executive Governor of Yobe State, North East of Nigeria. The quotation above aptly describes the personality of, “The Man-Buni”.

For Mai Mala Buni (CON), Governor of Yobe State, he has every cause to beat his chest for a job well done which earned him the trust of his people to return him to office for the second term during the recently concluded governorship election. The massive endorsement he received from his people is a statement to enable him consolidate on the good work he has been doing for the people of the state in the last four years. The trust of his people in him was underscored when he emerged as the winner of the Yobe State Gubernatorial Election held on Saturday, March 18. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced on Sunday March 19, that Governor Buni won his re-election after winning in all 17 Local Government Areas (LGA) in the state. Buni, a candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), polled a total of 317,113 votes to defeat his co-contenders in the state governorship election.

His main challenger, the candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Sharif Abdullahi, came a distant second with a total score of 104,259 votes. With his overwhelming victory at the polls, Governor Buni is returning as the state Governor for the second time from Monday, May 29. His journey into politics did not start today. At the youthful age of 20, he was elected into Gujba Local Government Council to represent Buni Gari ward, and to the surprise and bewilderment of his folks and foes alike, he became the most powerful council leader (Speaker) among the local government councils in the Old Borno state (comprising present day Borno and Yobe states).

His emergence at the national scene started when he was elected the first substantive National Secretary of Nigeria’s first-ever merger political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). He was, prior to that, and at various times, the state chairman of AC, ACN and APC. The success of APC defeating the then-ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and its sitting President, brought Governor Buni’s political sagacity and sophistication to bear and was unanimously returned for a second term of office as the National Secretary of the ruling party.

Buni, described as ‘Peace Ambassador’ is gifted with a rare character of tolerance, accommodation and uncommon humility. His faith and skill in dialogue, negotiation, and peaceful resolution of disputes and disagreements are down to earth and second to none. His character attracted him to both the old and new-bred politicians far and near from across the country and suddenly, Buni became a political colossus whose name traversed the length and breadth of Nigeria’s political space.

Today, Governor Buni symbolizes the dictum, “Politics Without Bitterness” as preached by his elder kinsman, the late Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim, former Presidential Candidate of the defunct Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP) in 1979. Buni earned himself a nickname and is popularly referred to as “Limamin Sulhu” which literally means the Apostle of Reconciliation. And few months into the office of the Executive Governor, the National Executive Committee of the party, unanimously nominated Buni to Chair the Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee to salvage the party, APC, from the jaws of an imminent collapse.

Governor Buni combined the task of governance and party administration with diligence, outlining his priorities as a Governor and setting his target goals as a political party administrator to reposition the ailing APC. He worked round the clock at both the state level and the then party headquarters, and thus, translating into record-breaking achievements at both levels. For the party, its once precarious destiny got reshaped while Yobe state recorded infrastructural revolution.