2023 Guber: Benue APC Vows to Deal with Members over Anti-party Activities

George Okoh in Makurdi

The Benue State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Austin Agada, has vowed to deal decisively with those sabotaging the party by indulging in anti-party activities in the state.

Agada was reacting to a call by an APC support group in the state, APC League of Voters, who called for the punishment of Senator Barnabas Gemade, whom they accused of anti-party activities.

Gemade is one of the governorship aspirants who contested in the primaries on the platform of the APC for the 2023 general election. After he lost in the primaries, he went to court against the party challenging the outcome of the gubernatorial primary elections.

The group, in a statement signed by its Leaders and Secretary, Orduen Aernan and Bem Adoor respectively, said they have reviewed the behaviour and activities of Gemade, and have come to the conclusion that he is rather a grave threat and a disaster to APC in the state.

They noted that they would be aiding mischief against their party, the APC, if they ignore and watch helplessly how he indulges in devious antics to ground the party.

The statement read in part: “To begin with, if there is anyone who has contributed nothing to building the APC in Benue State but has unjustifiably profited enormously from the party, that person is Gemade.”

The group recalled that Gemade joined the APC in 2015, on the day senatorial primaries of the party were ongoing. “This means that he is an interloper who found his way into the party fold when nomination forms had been sold and closed.

“The implication is that the screening of party candidates had already been done and concluded, and the final list of successful and eligible candidates for election duly published before Barnabas Gemade curiously wriggled his way when the most bizarre happened! He got a ‘waiver’, participated in the primaries, and was announced the winner.

“He would later be elected into the National Assembly. But after four years, the people of Benue North East senatorial district rated his performances as below average and denied him a ticket in 2019.

“Gemade quickly abandoned our great party, the APC, and jumped over to SDP. But when another election year was nigh, he again abandoned SDP and returned to APC where he contested for the 2023 gubernatorial ticket of the party but lost,” they said.

The group regretted that “against all pleas from respected personalities in Tiv land, Gemade was not deterred from dragging the party and the candidate through the judicial process up to the apex court.”

When contacted, the state Chairman of APC, Agada, noted that the League of Voters is not the only APC group that has made such allegations of anti-party activities on Gemade.

Agada said the allegations of Gemade and some other persons in the party engaging in anti-party activities have also been raised by other groups and individuals.

He promised that their claims would be investigated and everybody involved in anti-party activities will not go unpunished “because for us as a party, we have worked so hard and we don’t know why anybody will be involved in anti-party activity at this stage.”