He rode to power in a flash and crashed in a splash! That sums the story of the rise and fall of Iyorchia Ayu, as National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
By Emeka Alex Duru
He rode to power in a flash and crashed in a splash! That sums the story of the rise and fall of Iyorchia Ayu, as National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The initial assumption was that the PDP was in serious attempt at self-recovery, given the relative ease with which it concluded its October 30/31 2021 national convention in Abuja. Aside what on the surface, appeared a rancor-free exercise, the election of Ayu, erstwhile senate president and former minister, as its national chairman, was 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 in 2023, was worth the take. On several grounds, Ayu, a Tiv from Benue State, fitted into the bill. With a modern version of the warlike disposition of his kinsmen, he seemed to possess all that was needed to call the various tendencies in the party to order.
Even then, it was not lost to perceptive observers that bringing back the PDP to its stature, was certainly not going to be easy. It in fact, required men of iron and steel, as the legendary German statesman, Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, would advance. Ayu appeared equal to the task, going by his antecedents. He had 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 was 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 was expected 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.
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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 was thus, not a stranger to the problems and prospects of the party. If anything, rather, his job in reinventing the party was cut for him. And it was quite enormous, if not daunting. He needed tact and vision to halt the exodus of key members of the party to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Within that period, PDP had lost Governors Dave Umahi (Ebonyi), Ben Ayade (Cross River) and Bello Matawalle (Zamfara), to the APC.
Same hemorrhage was 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 was a huge challenge to Ayu.
The expectation was for him 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 acknowledged the fears by many that the Convention that threw him up might lead to the collapse of the PDP. He also assured of cementing the cracks in the party and extending same in uniting Nigerians that were obviously traumatized by the uncertain tide of events in the country.
“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.
Those were soothing and encouraging words. But they turned out not beyond the papers on which they were written. Ayu and his team in the PDP National Working Committee (NWC), needed to walk the talk. His first job was to assure the generality of the PDP membership, that he was not a chairman of some interests against the others in the party. But that, sadly, was not the case. He did not manage the situation better, as more chieftains of the party, left under his watch.
Again, Ayu betrayed his sentiments and bias in the run-up to the May 28 presidential primary of the party, when he crafted the entire arrangement to favour Atiku, his long-time ally, to the exclusion of other aspirants, especially those from the South East. That unprincipled alignment, saw him on collision with five governors of the party (G5) – Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Seye Makinde (Oyo), Samuel Ortom (Benue), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia) and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu), who also had their selfish agenda. Wike had plotted to pick the ticket of the party but was outsmarted by Atiku in cahoots with Ayu, and Aminu Tambuwal, the Sokoto state governor.
Neither the PDP, nor Ayu saw peace, subsequently. Thus, at the February 25 presidential election, it was not surprising that the party performed poorly. Further crisis in its fold, leading to his suspension at his Igyorov Ward of Gboko Local Government Area of Benue State and consequent court action, saw Iyorchia Ayu, leaving the exalted office in ignominy, on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. And with his unceremonious fall from the PDP chairmanship, the gulf in the party got widened.