HIS name is Iyorchia Ayu, a Tiv from Gboko in present-day Benue State. Iyorchia, among the Tiv ethnic group, means someone people are afraid of. Ayu, on the other hand, means a water mermaid. In essence, Iyorchia Ayu could be literarily translated to mean people are afraid of mermaids. But Nyesom Wike, the stormy petrel in Rivers State, and his faction in the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, seem not to be afraid of either Iyorchia Ayu or any mermaids lurking within the precinct of Wuse in Abuja, as they have succeeded in getting rid of the ‘mermaid’ at the Wadata Plaza, the headquarters of the PDP.
While mermaids are the queen of the water, another mermaid in the person of Ayu presided over the affairs of men inside Wadata Plaza. But the men in Wadata Plaza are made up of varieties of the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. In fact, some of them are the real ‘badass’ among us. These are politicians that can ‘smell blood’ several kilometers away. They are worse than hyenas. And the mermaid at Wadata Plaza became a lump of dead meat immediately after the PDP lost the 2023 presidential election to the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC. But Ayu, either due to naivety or overconfidence did not envisage that his tenure could be cut short when he began a witch hunt of those perceived to be responsible for the near colossal performance of the PDP in the presidential poll.
First to taste the bitter pill of Ayu was Ayodele Fayose, former Governor of Ekiti State, who was placed under suspension by the National Working Committee of the PDP over allegations of working for the rival APC. A presidential aspirant in the party and former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim was also suspended, as were Professor Dennis Ityavyar, a former Governorship aspirant in Benue State, and Chimaroke Nnamani, former Governor of Enugu State. Ibrahim Sheme, a former Governor, was also on the chopping block.
Ayu did not stop at that, as he directed the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, a member of the G-5 governors led by Wike to appear before a disciplinary committee of the party to show cause why he should not be suspended from the party for anti-party activities. Responding to his suspension, Fayose described Ayu’s latest move as the last kick of a dying horse and it was not long before the real politicking played out inside Wadata Plaza.
But the battle to get rid of Ayu began in Benue state from where he hails. The leadership of PDP in the state, led by Ortom, did not wait for too long before pulling the rug from under the feet of the mermaid in Wadata Plaza. Ayu was suspended at his ward level for anti-party activities and a few hours later, a court in the same Benue ruled that Ayu should stop parading himself as the National Chairman of the PDP. The presiding judge, Justice W.I Kpochi, who gave the interim order in the suit No. MHC/85/2023 filed at the court by Terhide Utaan and supported by a 15-paragraph affidavit, ruled that Ayu should stop parading himself as the National Chairman of PDP after his suspension at the Igyorov ward in Gboko local government area of Benue state.
Now is the time for the jackals and the hyenas at Wadata Plaza to finish the job. Under the guise of obeying a valid court order, an emergency NWC meeting was summoned and at the end of the day, Ayu’s tenure at Wadata Plaza became history. Ayu was simply directed to step aside pending the determination of the court case filed against him in Benue State. But since the court had ruled that he should stop parading himself as PDP National Chairman, it was time for Ayu to step aside pending the final determination of the case. The party went ahead to direct the Deputy National Chairman, (North), Ambassador Umar Iliya Damagum to assume office in acting capacity.
The National Publicity Secretary of the Party, Debo Ologunagba was given the enormous duty of breaking the ‘sad’ news of Ayu’s suspension to the media.
Ayu became the latest victim of the Banana peel that has always dogged the activities of whoever is elected to lead the party. Since its formation in 1998, the PDP has been led by 14 National Chairmen with most of them leaving in controversial circumstances and without completing their terms in office.
Sir Alex Ekwueme was the first pro-tem National Chairman of the Party and was in office for only three months before resigning to pursue his presidential ambition in the 1999 presidential election. Chief Bernabas Gemade was forced to resign from the post when it became apparent that he could no longer work seamlessly with former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The manner Chief Audu Ogbeh, who took over from Gemade was forced to leave the seat was even more dramatic. An uninvited guest to his house – President Olusegun Obasanjo requested a bowl of Pounded Yam and after eating, also requested Ogbeh’s resignation letter which a shocked Ogbeh had to quickly draft. Ahmadu Ali, who took over from Ogbeh, enjoyed some stability on the post as many believed that with a military background, Ali was able to work with Obasanjo with less trouble, until his tenure eventually ended in 2008, following the zoning of the party’s chairmanship to the South-East.
The tenures of Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, Dr. Okwesileze Nwodo and Alhaji Bamanga Tukur were tumultuous, and eventually consumed them. While Ogbulafor was removed by President Goodluck Jonathan’s pro – northern stand during the interregnum that occasioned the death of President Umaru Yar’adua, both Nwodo and Tukur fell under the pressure from the party’s governors, who resisted their authorities in the struggle for influence. Like Secondus, whose removal was orchestrated by Wike and his camp in the PDP, Ayu has been served the same meal by the same Wike-led faction in the party.
Since the party lost power at the centre in 2015, Ayu is the fourth person to have assumed that position, succeeding Secondus, who stepped in after Ahmed Makarfi, who himself replaced Ali Modu Sheriff. Ironically, Sheriff took over from Secondus, who was the Deputy National Chairman, South, after Adamu Muazu, was forced to resign as atonement for the 2015 presidential defeat.
The chief protagonist in the plot to unseat Ayu is Governor Wike, who together with his fellow Governors in the G-5 group continued to exercise disproportionate influence on the party through the power of the purse, a factor that was crucial in foisting Secondus on the party in 2017.
Ayu became a marked man when Wike lost the PDP presidential ticket to Atiku Abubakar. Wike felt that Ayu was the architect of the loss and waited for his pound of flesh. Immediately after the convention, Wike rallied like-minded Governors from the South and demanded that Ayu resigned for a Southerner to lead the party. In their words, it would be wrong for the PDP standard bearer and the party’s National Chairman to come from the North. They also claimed that Ayu promised to resign if a Northerner emerged as the Presidential candidate of the party in order to balance the North-South power-sharing arrangement in the party. But Ayu refused, and Atiku was not bold enough to dump Ayu. It was the house-cleansing exercise embarked upon by Ayu after the loss that got many angry and made it apparent that it was time for Ayu to kiss his job goodbye.
The PDP has now reversed all the decisions taken by Ayu to suspend Fayose and others with the hope that once the court case ran its full course, a mini-convention could be held to elect a new National Chairman of Southern extraction.
Wike, who has vowed to get rid of Ayu, is now grinning from ear to ear, rejoicing over the downfall of the man that allegedly truncated his presidential bid. Now, Wike has vowed to make the removal permanent. Hear from him: “Those lawyers telling you the ward has no power to suspend you, that only National Executive Council, NEC, can, don’t understand what is happening. When you came, it was the ward that suspended (Uche) Secondus, and you went and took office, is it not? So, forget it, you are gone. You are wasting your time. We are ready for the battle. I am not from Benue but I have an interest and that interest is that Ayu must go. Look at it, a National Chairman, your own ward will be suspending you. Does it not tell you that you are not on the ground?
He taunted Ayu further: “Ayu, the man you supported for president, you didn’t give him a vote, he lost. We supported a Southern president and we won in our states for equity, justice and fairness. A man who lost his unit, a man who lost his ward, a man who lost his local government, a man who lost his state and he is coming to preside over us who won our units, won our wards, won our local governments, won our state, something must be wrong. You cannot reap where you never sowed. If all of us have lost our states, what will you be chairing? You want to use Rivers State to be chairman, we are not a party to that. Go and bring your own local government. Here (in Rivers), we won 32 over 32 seats for the House of Assembly, Ayu, how many did you win? Here, we won the three seats for Senate too, Ayu, how many did you win? We won 11 out of the 13 seats for the House of Representatives, Ayu, how many did you win?”
Indeed, it could be rightly argued now that PDP could have easily won the presidential poll if it has gone into the battle with a united front. The party could have won in Oyo State, where Seyi Makinde, a member of the G-5 delivered his state to the APC. It was the same scenario in Rivers and Benue States. Internal sabotage in states such as Ebonyi, Abia, and Cross River cost the party several thousands of votes coupled with the tsunami that Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party became at the end of the exercise. Many hitherto PDP strongholds were captured by the Labour Party candidate who had expected that the ticket would be zoned to the South. It was at the last minute that Obi resigned from the PDP to pitch his political tent with the Labour Party.
It is time for the party to begin an introspection of what went wrong in the 2023 general elections and to begin to plan ahead for the 2027 polls. The party should also stick to its North-South power-sharing arrangement. It is wrong to mouth power sharing in one breath and at another time canvass for the best candidate flying the flag of the party. If Obi had remained in the party and there was no G-5 governors working against the interest of the PDP, APC would have been history today. But for now, the Banana peel inside Wadata Plaza has consumed another victim.
See you next week
Akintunde is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Glittersonline newspaper. His syndicated column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.