The Senator representing Benue North East, (Zone A), Sen. Banabas Gemade has described the National Assembly elections in his zone as not only a sham but a terrible outing.
Gemade stated this when the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Hingah Biem, led the state party officials and candidates to pay him a solidarity visit in his Makurdi residence.
Gemade, who sought to return to the Senate under the platform of the SDP, lost to Dr Gabriel Suswam, a former Benue state Governor and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Addressing his visitors, Sen. Gemade thanked them for the solidarity visit explaining that there was no form of election in his zone last Saturday.
According to him, what happened was outright stealing and allocation of votes to which INEC looked the other and equally endorsed.
“It was just a terrible outing and what INEC has done was a shame. There was no election what-so-ever there. But in whatever way, they made out figures. The magnitude of corruption was unbelievable.
Grenade who expressed sadness that the state currently exists purely by elements of blackmail and conspiracy feared that the repercussions would make Benue worse since she is already in bad shape.
The party officials had proceeded to his house from a stakeholders meeting to plan ahead of the forthcoming guber and state assembly elections.
Gemade gave them a pat on the back for standing firm and forging ahead despite the betrayals which led to their failure in the last elections and urged them to look inwards and remove all internal impediments.
He equally observed with shock that the party was none existence during the elections as party officials and agents who managed to show up at the polling units had a field day working for other political parties.
“Less than 10 percent of our agents were available to witness the horrible treatment meted out on our party. They all vanished as soon as they were mobilized”.
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He therefore advised the party not to use the same agents selected by the party for the forthcoming elections describing them as rogues and bandits.
Gemade also thanked his co-contestant from the Benue South Senatorial District, (Zone C) Mike Onoja and all the candidates for House of Representatives for standing by the party saying, “we may not have won any seat, but we have won the appreciation of God by our sincerity”.
Earlier, the party’s guber candidate, Hingah Biem had told their host that the SDP family had come to pay him a solidarity visit.
“We assure you that we are behind you in this struggle and in any step you might be taking to find a way forward.”
He thanked the senator for his support to the party before and during the election and prayed God to give him and all the candidates the strength and grace to stand firm, even in the face of what has happened.
Chairman of the party, John Enemari told Gemade that the party has made its position known to the electoral body.
Enemari who insisted that the results were unacceptable to the party said card readers were not used in five LGs in Zone A, just as there were thuggery, ballot snatching and vote buying.
He called on INEC to cancel the elections in those areas and do a rerun.
