Senator Barnabas Gemade yesterday stated that he is not at war with the governor of his state, Gabriel Suswam, over a return ticket to the Senate.In a press statement made available to LEADERSHIP yesterday, the senator said a report on Thisday Newspaper published on Sunday, 23rd November, 2014 on page 85, with the caption, “Bid for Benue North Senatorial Slot sets Suswam, Gemade on war path”, is false.
Gemade said he “cannot be on war path, or at daggers drawn with Governor Gabriel Suswam or any other person for that matter, over the picking of tickets under Peoples Democratic Party, and the contesting of elections, as he is not a desperate personality”, and that he “has not, and will not engage in battle with anybody with regards his election returning to the Senate in 2015”.
The statement noted that the senator only petitioned the PDP on alleged manipulation of ward congress held in the state, an act that he said was not out of place since “all parties that were victims of the malpractice that was carried out on that day petitioned the national working committee of the PDP”.
The statement further cleared speculation that he is seeking an automatic ticket to return to the Senate, saying, ”the decision for the grant of the automatic tickets to 40 senators of PDP extraction was a collective decision reached on the 6th of November, 2014, and it was not peculiar to Senator Gemade alone, and as such, it will be ridiculous, preposterous and childish to accuse Gemade of having being speculative on the issue of Abuja giving him an automatic ticket”.
The former national chairman of PDP also denied that President Goodluck Jonathan did not attend Governor Suswam’s birthday celebration in order to avoid talks of automatic ticket, stating that he was attending an important international function in Ghana on that day.