The Social Democratic Party in Benue State has gone into alliance with the Labour Party in preparation for the forthcoming general elections.
The chairman of the SDP, John Enemari, who disclosed this on Monday, said the leadership of his party had given directives to all party chairmen, its executives at the 276 electoral wards and the 23 local government areas to support the Labour Party and its governorship candidate, Herman Hembe, for good governance.
Speaking at a news conference in Makurdi where he led members of its executive across the three senatorial zones and council wards in the state, he charged them to go and build Labour Party and support its candidates.
He said, “The man that is coming is a young man that has done very well in its constituency. This is his fourth time at the National Assembly, House of Representatives. Once you mention his name, they will tell you, they know him.
“My people are calling me, ‘chairman, where do you want us to go?’ I said ‘look, wait.’ I met with him and we spoke. So, my people, we are going to work with him (Herman Hembe).”
The SDP chairman said the crisis at the national level has destabilised the party in all the states of the federation which he said led to having factions in the party.
Enemari said the time had come when the party in the state had to take its future in its own hand, accusing the national leadership of the party of sweeping the state office of several millions of naira generated from aspirants in the build up to 2019 general elections.
He said, “We cannot continue to suffer for them at the national office, national office reaped closed to N100 million from Benue SDP, in 2018 but no one kobo was sent to us to work for the party and by the party constitution, we were supposed to get not less than N75m from the sales of forms in accordance with party constitution of section 72(2), but these people in Abuja sat on it.”
“In a party, if you don’t win election, what do you do? Now they are in court, let them continue, Benue is not a revenue yielding state for them. Benue now needs good governance we cannot remain idle, we must work with those with integrity to deliver the state.”