By Emeka Alex Duru
If the morning can tell the day, it may then be reasonably safe to assume that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is in serious attempt at self-recovery, given the relative ease with which it concluded its October 30/31 national convention in Abuja. Aside the near rancor-free exercise, the election of erstwhile senate president and former minister, Iyorchia Ayu, as its national chairman, is seen as a strategic move at repositioning the party.
For a party that keeps ruing its surprising dislodgement from power since the 2015 general elections, getting a formidable arrow-head to lead the attack at regaining its lost glory, is worth the take. On several grounds, Ayu, a Tiv from Benue State, fits into the bill. With a modern version of the warlike disposition of his kinsmen, he has all that it takes to call the various tendencies in the party to order.
Bringing back the PDP to its stature, is certainly not going to be easy. It requires men of iron and steel, as the legendary German statesman, Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, would recommend. The new PDP chairman, is equal to the task, if his antecedents are to go by. He has never been battle shy. As a sociology teacher in the University of Jos, where he also handled courses on the art and science of Marxism, Ayu is not a stranger to the dialectics of political party intrigues and human relations. And as the Chairman of the University’s chapter of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) at a time, he should know when to hold on to his positions and draw the lines. Doing so to get PDP back to reckon, would not be asking too much.
Ayu and his politics
Once in the past, Ayu demonstrated that principle could count in politics, when he was elected President of the Senate, on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), during the Third Republic (1992–1993). For standing against the Interim National Government (ING) put in place by the departing General Ibrahim Babangida administration after the elected President, Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola had been prevented from taking office, Ayu was impeached by his colleagues. He left with his head and integrity high, only to be returned to national assignment as minister for education by the succeeding Sani Abacha regime.
At the dawn of the present dispensation, he was on hand with like minds to give birth to the PDP, capping the efforts with assisting in the 1998-1999 campaign to elect Olusegun Obasanjo as president on the ticket of the party. In return, Obasanjo appointed him minister for industries from 1999 to 2000. In July 2003, Ayu moved over to the ministry of internal affairs.
After falling out with Obasanjo, Ayu left the PDP and joined the Action Congress (AC), where he was head of the campaign to elect the then Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, as president on the AC platform in April 2007. After a while on the fringes, he returned to the PDP.
Confronting the challenges in PDP
Ayu is thus, not a stranger to the problems and prospects of the party. If anything rather, his job in reinventing the party is cut for him. And it is quite enormous, if not daunting. To start with, he needs tact and vision to halt the current exodus of key members of the party to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). In the last few months, PDP has lost Governors Dave Umahi (Ebonyi), Ben Ayade (Cross River) and Bello Matawalle (Zamfara), to the APC.
Same hemorrhage has been recorded in Senators Stella Oduah (Anambra North), Peter Nwaoboshi (Delta North), entire Zamfara senators and many in the House of Representatives and State Assemblies leaving the party. They all complained of absence of internal democracy in PDP. That is a huge challenge to Ayu.
The few weeks to his assumption of office on December 9, demand serious engagements with stakeholders, especially the estranged chieftains of the party to assure them that they are still needed in its fold. This is the time to revisit the iconic blueprint of the party’s forbears that was jettisoned by successive leaders who preferred the rule of the thumb.
The task ahead
Ayu has started well in appreciating the fears many had that the Convention that threw him up might lead to the collapse of the PDP. He has also assured of cementing the cracks in the party and extending same in uniting Nigerians that are obviously traumatized by the uncertain tide of events in the country.
“Many people imagine that this convention will lead to the breakup of PDP. Those people who are dreaming like that, their dreams were misplaced. Those who have lost hope should know that Nigeria is not a divided country. A small group of people decided to divide Nigeria.
“PDP will come back to unite our people, put them together, north and south, east and west. We will move ahead to develop this country. We did it before. We are going to do it again”, he assured.
These are soothing and encouraging words. But they should go beyond the papers on which they are written. Ayu and his team in the PDP National Working Committee (NWC), should walk the talk. His first move in this direction is to assure the generality of the PDP membership, that he is not a chairman of some interests against the others in the party.
At any time or point where he creates the impression of working for any particular individual or group, especially as the race for the 2023 presidential ticket of the party hots up, Ayu, would, perhaps, unintentionally be setting the PDP on a dangerous course it may never recover from.
