Senator Barnabas Gemade, a former Managing Director of Benue Cement Company, and former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) before his defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and now Social Democratic Party (SDP) remains fortunate to have escaped assassination in Benue State in the build up to the 2015 general elections, National Daily reports.
Sources told National Daily that a major political opponent had plotted the assassination of the Senator which failed, though, the man who was approached to carry out the job died in his place.
According to our sources, a Pharmacist operating in Benue State, Ternenge Labe, owner of Lambeth Pharmacy, identified to be located adjacent to Bristow roundabout in Gboko, was contacted by the said politician to poison the senator through administration of adulterated drugs. Labe, National Daily sources said, was the medical consultant to Senator Gemade. The Pharmacist resisted the pressures, including monetary inducement, and rejected the appeal to kill the senator.
Our sources further said that, perhaps, because of the fear that the failed plot may be leaked, armed men were deployed to murder the Pharmacist, Ternenge Labe, owner of Lambeth Pharmacy. Before he was killed, Labe had revealed the plot and his resistance to pressures to his wife, who then kept the secret. Labe did not reveal the plot to the Senator before he was killed by the gunmen.
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Apparently, the plot was exposed by Labe’s wife after the murder of her husband by gunmen. Thus, the political rival and the killers were not aware Labe had already leaked the plot to kill Gemade to his wife before they murdered him.
The sources also disclosed that Police investigation into the murder was frustrated by the political opponents of the senator linked to the assassination plot.
Senator Gemade, who lost the 2019 senatorial election in Zone A, Benue State, to the PDP, was said to be an accomplished and decent politician who hate political violence. The senator discourages the use of political thugs for the violence by any politician in the state.