By Salihu Pirkusu, Maiduguri
The Borno State commissioner for Poverty Alleviation, Youth Empowerment and Sports, Comrade Saina Buba, has debunked media reports claiming that he threatened physical harm to opposition.
However, the commissioner, in a viral video online, which has sparked widespread concern threatened cut off the fingers of those who pointed a finger at them.
“We are now playing politics. Whoever shows us a finger, we will show him a finger… Whoever dares to show us a finger again, we will break his finger,” a statement he denied targeting oppositions.
Briefing journalists in his office, in Maiduguri, Buba said his statement was exclusively being addressed to the teeming members of All Progressive Congress (APC) across northeast region.
He insisted that his statement was twisted, creating impression that he was referring to oppositions.
“The meeting was purely APC members gathering not political parties. It’s a City Boy Movement (CBM) that was lunched in the northeast to empower party loyalists, which is purely an APC affairs not gathering for political parties.
“We in the APC observed that immediately after the party’s primaries, some aggrieved members have started playing anti party politics, and we felt it’s necessary to call them to order by telling them, ‘Those who vote APC candidates will be fed with honey, while those who don’t, will be caned’,”.
Buba explained that it was a figurative statement, meaning that, “Our empowerment and other welfare packages will be limited to loyalists, and nothing for those who engaged in anti- party activities.”
The commissioner reemphasized that he has no apology over his statement, which was directed to the gathering of like minds who agreed to be faithful to the idles of APC as a party.
He noted that, as 2027 electioneering campaign started, people should expect volume of attacks from the oppositions.
Buba said, “fortunately, there is no opposition in Borno as our party will clinch all elective positions in view of numerous people oriented projects executed by the state and federal government in the northeast region.”
