Buni Tests His Diplomatic Skills

Last week, Governor Mai Mala Buni was in Chad where he visited Nigerian refugees at the Kaya site in the Lac Province. The Yobe state governor, it seems, is stepping into the shoes of a diplomat, an agent of national security, and a development expert.

Promising to help the refugees return home, Buni who was accompanied by the Commander of the Multinational Joint Task Force, Major General Saidu Tanko Audu, is apparently the only Nigerian official to have visited the refugees since they were camped there.

In June 2025, Buni was also in Chad where he chaired the first meeting of the Lake Chad Basin Commission. But he is not the only northeast governor venturing into neighbouring countries in the Lake Chad region.

Trying to keep the peace has meant coordination between sub-nationals across borders. Attempts to repatriate refugees are also a sign that pressure from Boko Haram and other groups has abated.

Zulum visited Niger in October 2025 and embarked on an official visit to Cameroon in December 2025. Zulum has spent months trying to repatriate indigenes of Borno, who in some cases have been trapped in the Niger Republic, Chad, or Cameroon for a whole decade.

Though not a member of the Forum, Governor Agbu Kefas of Taraba also crossed the border into Cameroon with a delegation that had several lawmakers and security officials to strengthen cooperation against terrorism and cross-border crimes.

But there is a common thread in all of there cross border visits. All the governors met with their counterparts in the respective countries. They are also usually accompanied by intelligence and security officials. There is a reason for that; trust.

Following the rupture of diplomatic relations between Nigeria and the Niger Republic, Burkina Faso, and Mali on one hand, and the expulsion of French troops from a number of Francophone countries in West Africa, security coordination has changed hands.

The Lake Chad Governors Forum, is beginning to play a significant role in coordinating security and economic activities across borders. The Multinational Joint Task Force has also had to make adjustments.

When the Forum was formed in 2018, it was mostly to compliments efforts of the federal government in coordinating security, development, and aiding refugees.

The forum has eight governors as members; three of them are from Northeast Nigeria, two are from Chad, two are from Cameroon and one is from the Niger Republic.

The three Nigerian governors; Babagana Zulum of Borno, Adamu Fintiri of Adamawa, and Mai Mala Buni of Yobe who also serves as the chairman of the forum are increasingly acting as Nigeria’s main agents in executing its national security objectives in the Lake Chad region.

Other than attending the forum’s January 2025 meeting in Maiduguri, Borno State, Adamawa governor Fintiri has been the least active. But ultimately, governors in the Lake Chad are filling a hole left by Nigeria’s foreign policy institutions