The former National Chairman of Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Barnabas Gemade, has rejoined the All Progressives Congress (APC) after a stint with the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Hundreds of his supporters followed him to APC at his Mbawar Council Ward, Konshisha Local Government Area of Benue State.
He said he decided to rejoin APC after due consideration of the political climate in Benue State, describing his return to APC is home–coming.
Gemade represented Benue North East senatorial district on the platform of APC from 2015-2019.
He expressed gratitude to APC leaders, including President Muhammadu Buhari; Acting National Chairman of the party and Yobe Governor Mai Mala Buni and Minister for Special Duties Senator George Akume, expressing desire to work to reshape the party in the state to become stronger.
Gemade said his alliance with Akume, since return to party politics in 1999, has always been instrumental to electoral victory in the state.
Benue APC chairman Comrade Abba Yaro received Chief Gemade on behalf of the party.
He said it was an important day for APC because Chief Gemade is a big fish.
“We were not happy when you left. Now that you are back we are happy. It’s a good day for APC because Chief Gemade is a big fish.
“Let me assure you that there is no new APC or old APC; everyone is treated the same and we all have equal rights.
“We are all brothers and sisters. Therefore, let us support one another and work together as a team.
“If the state secretariat of the party has offended you in anyway, forgive us,” Yaro said.
Reacting to the development, the PDP said it views Gemade’s decision with amusement, describing it as irrelevant.
The Benue State Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Bemgba Iortyom, said ordinarily the party should not concern itself with an exercise which it described as a mere charade by well known perennial political nomads.
It, however, said its attention was drawn to a statement by Senator Gemade where he was quoted as saying that his move to APC has sent jitters down the spines of PDP and other political parties in the State.
The PDP said: “Underscoring the irrelevance of this charade of a decamping is the loud question: As a former National Chairman of a ruling party, former Minister and former Senator, why was the Benue State leader of the APC, Senator George Akume, conspicuously absent at the decamping ceremony yesterday?
“Was Senator Gemades’s diminishing political value not highlighted by his abysmally poor performance in his Senatorial re-election bid in 2019 on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), where he lost even in his native Mbawar and placed third in the race behind a political greenhorn like Mimi Orubibi, after he had junketed from APC to PDP and then to SDP all in the space of a few months?
“Senator Gemade needs to be reminded that his party SDP has not won even a single councilorship seat in all elections since he joined the party in 2019. It lost in all the polls he actively participated in last year.
“He ought to also remember that PDP won the governorship election, 3 senatorial seats out of 3, 7 House of Representatives seats of 11 and 23 Benue State House of Assembly seats out of 30.