Saina Buba, Borno commissioner for poverty alleviation, youth empowerment and sports, has clarified that his controversial remark about “cutting off” the fingers of critics was figurative and was not directed at opposition members.
Buba made the clarification during a press briefing in Maiduguri on Monday, following widespread outrage over comments he made at a political gathering two days earlier. Speaking at a campaign inauguration organised by the City Boy Movement, a political support group backing President Bola Tinubu’s second-term bid, Buba had warned critics against opposing the administration of Governor Babagana Zulum.
He told the gathering that those who continued to oppose the state government would face consequences, while describing politics as a process involving patience, lobbying and enforcement. “Whoever raises their fingers against us, we will do the same to them. If you raise your fingers again, we will cut them off,” he said in a video that went viral.
However, Buba said on Monday, August 31, that his comments had been taken out of context and were directed at members of the All Progressives Congress from the North-East who attended the event, rather than members of opposition parties. Buba said the gathering was strictly an APC event and was not a meeting of political parties.
“The meeting was purely APC members gathering, not political parties. It’s a City Boy Movement which was designed to promote economic empowerment, self-reliance, skills development and improved livelihoods, among party loyalists,” he said. Buba said the remarks were made in response to what he described as anti-party activities by some APC members following the party’s primaries.
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“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 for APC candidates will be fed with honey, while those who don’t will be caned,” he said.
The commissioner maintained that his reference to cutting off fingers was figurative and meant that government empowerment and welfare programmes could be restricted to party loyalists rather than people involved in anti-party activities. Buba said he had no apology for the remark, insisting that it was made to a gathering of people who shared the same political affiliation and had agreed to remain committed to the ideals of the APC.