Mai Mala Buni, governor of Yobe, says he has no plans to join the opposition coalition being promoted by  some opposition leaders, including former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.

Buni’s stance is contained in a statement issued by Mamman Mohammed, the director-general of press and media affairs in the office of the Yobe state governor.

According to NAN, a viral message had claimed that Buni and four other All Progressives Congress (APC) governors were finalising plans to defect to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) before the 2027 elections. 

This follows growing coalition talks among opposition politicians seeking to wrest power from the ruling APC ahead of the next general election.

The former vice-president has been at the forefront of strategic meetings and talks around the proposed coalition against the APC.

However, Buni’s spokesperson dismissed the claim of Buni joining the coalition, describing it as “baseless fabrications, unwarranted imagination, and assumptions that did not cross paths with reality in any way, shape, and form”.

He said the author of the message had never been close enough to Buni to predict the governor’s political movement.

“Buni is no ordinary member of APC; he is not just an APC governor. He is APC in all ramifications, with APC flowing in his veins,” the statement reads.

“His contributions to building APC as a two-term National Secretary and National Chairman who chaired the party’s convention committee make him unique, and whose imagination of leaving the party cannot be speculated.”

Mohammed said the author and his paymasters must have been interested in Buni’s political sagacity and only wished they would have the likes of the governor.

“It must be wishful thinking,” he added.