Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni has clarified that his N300 million pledge toward a university project is a personal donation and does not come from state funds.
The Director-General of Press and Media Affairs to the Governor, Mamman Mohammed, made this known in a statement on Tuesday.
Buni announced the pledge on Sunday in Jos, Plateau State, during a one-day national symposium organised by the Jama’atu Izalatil Bid’ah Wa Iqamatis Sunnah (JIBWIS).
The group wants to use the money for a proposed university.
Kabiru Masari, Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, announced both donations at the event.
He pledged N300 million of his own and announced another N300 million on behalf of Buni, bringing the total contribution to N600 million.
Mohammed said neither donation came from the Yobe State Government.
“The donations made by Hon. Kabiru Masari on behalf of his humble self, and Governor Buni, were very personal and not on behalf of Yobe State Government,” he stated.
He added that Masari has no power to make pledges or decisions for the Yobe State Government and described reports linking the donation to state resources as “totally false, inaccurate, misleading and a distortion of facts.”
The pledge has drawn criticism from residents and activists in Yobe, who question why the governor would commit such a sum to a project outside the state while local education and healthcare face funding challenges.
The Yobe’s 2025 budget performance found that the state spent N2.8 billion on honorarium and sitting allowances between January and September, more than it spent on primary healthcare capital projects in the same period.
The State Primary Healthcare Board received N580 million in capital expenditure, while the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology got N1.8 billion.
The state also budgeted N2.1 billion for luxury vehicles in 2025, after spending N6.088 billion on vehicles in 2024.
The university at the centre of the donation, known as Fortune University, is under construction in Magama Gumau, Toro Local Government Area of Bauchi State.
JIBWIS, led by Sheikh Sani Yahaya Jingir, has raised funds for the project from several political and religious figures over the years.
The symposium, themed “Enhanced Political Participation and Social Justice as a Panacea for Unity and Development in Nigeria,” also featured remarks from Jingir on the country’s political process.
He has previously faced criticism for using his religious platform to make political statements, including recent calls for Nigerians to back a Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2027.
Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin previously pledged N450 million toward the university, while Sokoto State Governor Ahmed Aliyu pledged N300 million.
Each of Nigeria’s 19 northern governors earlier donated N50 million to the project, and the Bauchi State Government provided 120 hectares of land for the site in Gumau.
Bauchi’s 20 local government areas separately contributed N200 million toward the project.
During the 2023 election campaign, then-presidential candidates Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar each donated N100 million to the university.
Jingir said JIBWIS has established over 5,000 primary and secondary schools nationwide and enrolled about seven million pupils under its education initiative.
At the Jos symposium, Jingir thanked Masari and Buni for their pledges and renewed his call on governments, corporate organisations and wealthy individuals to support the university’s completion.
