A former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Barnabas Gemade, lambasted the PDP and the All Progressives Congress, noting that both parties had been taken over by impunity and it was necessary for him to leave.
Gemade, who stated this on Tuesday, said that the same reasons that made him leave the PDP for the APC had made him to also leave the APC for the Social Democratic Party.
The senator representing Benue State North-East Senatorial District had earlier on Monday defected to the SDP, and collected an expression of interest and nomination forms from the party.
Gemade returned the form at the SDP National Secretariat on Tuesday, saying that “the issues that drove him from the PDP were the same he met in the APC.”
He said he left the PDP and also dumped the ruling APC because both parties were not practising internal democracy.
Gemade said both parties lacked respect for the rule of law as enshrined in the nation’s constitution, a reason, he explained, necessitated his exit from the parties.
He said, “When I ran the PDP, it was an excellent party. Thereafter, impunity took over and that is why so many of us left and went to other parties. I also went to the APC. Those problems cropped up again and it was necessary to move. I have removed myself.
“If you don’t condone something, and it is something you cannot remove from where you are; you remove yourself. Politics is all about times and seasons. The reason is that so many issues had bedevilled a lot of parties.”
The Benue State senator said poor governance had led to insurgency and lack of insecurity in his state and other parts of the country, coupled with lack of internal democracy in the APC and the PDP.
The SDP National Publicity Secretary, Alfa Mohammed, said that with Gemade joining the party, the senator now became the New Minority Leader in the Senate.
