The desperation of Senator Barnabas Gemade, the Senator representing Benue North East at the Nigerian Senate to return to power has become a major obstacle to the right of the electorate to freely choose
the candidate of the choice in the rescheduled elections slated for this weekend. Gemade’s desperation has made him hell-bent to cause mayhem and illegally abort the elections on Saturday both for the presidential and national assembly.
The Senator’s dirty tactics are not unusual. He tried to impose himself on the PDP through similar ‘strong arm’ tactics last year, but was fiercely and vehemently rejected by vast majority of members of the People Democratic Party before the Senatorial primary of the party, which led to his ignominious exit from the party. And this of course, made him to jump ship to the rival APC. Unfortunately, even within the APC, Gemade has continued with the same dirty tactics, where he forcefully stalled every process to the success of the
senatorial primaries of his new found party on 8th December 2014.
This ugly display of power by Senator Gemade , according to Mr Andrew Ayabam one of the senatorial aspirants of the APC left much to be desired
According to Ayabam, “any would have begun to wonder over the long silence I have maintained since the loss of my senatorial bid to Senator Barnabas Gemade on 8th December 2014. The election, which was held in Katsina-Ala was a charade in itself as my party the, All Progressives Congress (APC), predetermined outcomes, which in connivance with other elements within the party murdered democracy on that fateful day.
“I have taken out time to review these events which culminated into my loss. On the 8th December, 2014 with your prayers and unmatched support I went into the primaries for the Benue North-East Senatorial seat, but this election through the machinations of those who have held our destinies hostage over the years was marred with unimaginable electoral offences and irregularities.
“The election was ‘won’ by Senator Barnabas Gemade who, at the time of voting was not yet a member of our party, the APC as he was until the day of the elections, still accepting appointments and responsibilities in the PDP. (see page 12 Sunday Trust newspaper 7 December, 2014).
“The election, which was intended for three aspirants;
Maagbe, Kyanyon and myself, had four people participating with Gemade who entered Katsina Ala with a bullion van and a chest of assorted weapons. He started his campaign by dishing out N1 million each to the seven local government area in Zone A, which later increased to N2 million as the election progressed, while delegates got amounts ranging from N10,000 to N30,000 depending on time of voting.
“In as much as we were not aware of his entrance into the race neither did we know when he was screened for the race since the screening committee had completed its assignment and relocated to Abuja since 28th November, 2014, we still hoped for a free and fair election, however this was never to be.
“The elections began without a presentation of the list of delegates, accreditation of delegates was not done either, even when it was agreed later after complaints from my agents that accreditation should be done by show of membership card. This was observed little way into the elections until by orders of the new entrant; it was jettisoned to enable non delegates and sponsored thugs who were paid N30,000 each to participate.
“Even with the monetary inducement Gemade and his agents used thugs to intimidate and collect ballot papers from the delegates and voted for their candidate with disregard to whom the delegates wanted to vote.
“Intermittently, we experienced power outages in the arena. The venue had no perimeter fence and only two light bulbs covering the whole area. There was no form of identification, no clearance of any sort as everybody moved around as freely as desired. The arena became a bazaar of sort as Gemade, his son and associates turned up the heat.
“It was a common sight to see armed men in mufti and other strange attires brandishing different shapes and sizes of weapons. These men were patrolling the streets and smoking with directives to clear any obstacle in the way of his ambition.
“An appeal by my agent to have the election suspended due to all these irregularities was rejected by the team who instead asked my agent to petition the conduct and results of the election if he felt cheated.
“At this juncture, it was obvious that there was a failure in security so we had to run for our dear lives else, we might not live to tell the story. Even my brave agents who insisted on staying on to see it to the end, were asked by thugs to leave the election venue or incur their wrath, which they (my agents) obliged for fear of their lives.
“In the end, the results came up as arranged by the party’s hierarchy, with votes allocated with specific aim to embarrass me and the support you have shown me thus, placing me third in the scores, even as no voting was carried out. In as much as I am not satisfied with the manner and conduct of the elections, I am more distraught by the future of our democracy.”
Form investigation, on the day of this ill-fated congress, Gemade in cahoots with some other political dinosaurs in the area openly relished their vantage position to appropriate to themselves the role of political leaders of the area. Gemade deployed enormous and awesome financial muscle to mobilize bandits from outside the state to aid him in his quest to cause mayhem in the event his nefarious plans to hijack the local party machinery boomerangs.
In conclusion, Ayabam said, “what is most worrisome now, is that only few days to the general elections, it is alleged that Chief Gemade in his deadly desperation to retain his exalted seat at the nation’s upper legislative chamber has recruited well trained and armed militia to help him prosecute and realise his re-election bid, against the popular wish of the people of Benue North East Senatorial District.”
Gemade who had repeatedly told stakeholders from the senatorial district that he is one term senator has put everything in place now to destroy the same people that graciously gave him their mandate to represent them, from 2011 till date. If there is a Tiv man who has benefitted immensely from the kind gesture of his people, that man is Chief (Engr) Barnabas Gemade. He was the first indigenous Managing Director of Benue Cement Company, former chairman, Congress for National Consensus, Secretary of Works, Ministry of Works and Housing, one-time National Chairman of ,PDP, the largest political party in sub-Sahara Africa and currently a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria amidst several other appointments. Haba Senator! Must it be only you?
AKPA National Coordinator of Benue North East Forum for Good Governance wrote this piece from Makurdi