The Fall of PDP National Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu

The likely scenarios in Nigerian politics in the next six months to one year are beginning to unfold, beginning with the sudden departure from the stage of Dr. Iyorchia Ayu as National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, (PDP). What began with his suspension from the party at the Ward level in his home state of Benue last week morphed into his stepping aside Tuesday in Abuja. It is a perfect anti-climax that a founder and key ideologue of the party in 1998 would develop into a glitch as its Chairman as to leave office unceremoniously. It is also a paradox that a well-trained political Sociologist with socialist orientation would end up like this. Is it a problem of character flaw or just that ‘book people’ hardly have the native intelligence of ‘non-book’ people in Nigerian politics? Is it the problem of the non-Muslim Middle Belter in high office in Nigeria who is usually overwhelmed by the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa-Fulani presence? Being more numerous and more entrenched, the elite of the three majority ethnic groups are inherently destabilising of those outside that cultural circuits even when the elements of these majority ethnic groups plotted no evil or meant no harm. But if that were true, how did David Mark, Ayu’s Benue brother survive intact for eight years as Senate president? Mark is not a Muslim and did not have a Muslim brotherhood to appeal to in the North and Southwest and religion did not form part of his approaches to politics. Questions, questions and questions

Gov Nysesom Wike of Rivers State and Samuel Ortom, his Benue State counterpart, might not have finished with Ayu yet

Intervention recalls Dr. Ayu’s emergence in October 2021 was a classic come back. As he himself said at a subsequent reception in Makurdi, he thought he was buried. That was a surprising statement. How could Ayu be buried when Atiku Abubakar was still roaring in politics? Anyway, he came back to high office against all odds. His biggest odd is the unwritten rule in PDP praxis that the National Chairman of the party should, unless unavoidable, not come from a state where the party is in power. Having the Chairman from a state where the party is in power has created problems for the party before: a variant of the ‘Abuja boys’ versus ‘the home boys’ syndrome. That hurdle was cleared by a guarantee by Samuel Ortom, the governor of Benue State who told his governor colleagues he was sure he would have no problems with Dr. Ayu. His fellow governors gave the nod and Ayu emerged as a consensus National Chairman.

The expectation was that Ayu would be iconic. He had advantages that no other Chairmen had. He is well educated, has the advantage of being a founder with memories of the pain associated with the difficult process it was negotiating the PDP, has had experience of high office, is knowledgeable about elite codes and protocol of power, (settled issues, no-nos, etc) in Nigerian politics, many of which are not written, has a huge reserve of individuals, including former presidents of Nigeria, that he could call when in difficulty and enjoys the other side of being a Middle Belter in power – unencumbered by seeking to leave Nigeria to form a new republic.

It is open to debate if he has been iconic in any ways. Intervention cannot recall him coming over into the radical circles for the kind of critique he could hardly get anywhere else. It is not also clear if Ayu as a socialist did anything in terms of improving the party school without which the party will remain a shadow of itself, even by the standards of a traditional party. In fact, trouble started coming very early, climaxing with the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as the party’s presidential candidate in 2022. Atiku’s emergence was (mis) interpreted as a contravention of the rotation of power principle. But it was not. The All Progressives Congress, (APC) was bound by the principle of rotation of power to shift power to the South in the 2023 elections but not the PDP because PDP’s last president is a Southerner. Once this explanation was not well made, it was possible for those with competing calculations to use it as a hook – up to wreck the Atiku candidacy. How did it happen that the National Chairman could not play the representational politics of that event? Without that, Ayu who clearly bought into the Atiku candidacy became a target. What remains the puzzle Intervention could still not fathom is what was at stake that neither Atiku nor Ayu could sacrifice each other as to be ready to sacrifice everything.

The dynamics worked out in such a manner that Atiku Abubakar could not save Ayu

They miscalculated although Atiku had his way in contesting the election. He is in court and could bounce back, miraculously, depending on how their Lordships look at his claims. But for Ayu, it is a different reality. Before anyone could say Ayu, a suspension order was in the news. Many people thought it was a joke being taken too far. But it was typical PDP in-house cleansing operation. It is usually merciless, usually carried out in a manner confirmatory of Lee Kuan Yew’s reason for his disdain for conventional politics. The late Singaporean leader said the cycle of musical chairs is the very anti-thesis of the quality and stability of governance required for rapid social transformation.

Anyway, in this case, it was two fighting: Ortom and Ayu. But it is a case of fire without smoke. Nobody can fix Ortom’s hands on it but his hands were everywhere. That’s the mysterious power of a governor in the Nigerian setting. He can do and undo. In this case, the governor’s control of the party was activated. The Ward leaders did the paper work. The National Chairman’s suspension was announced. That was at the Ward level but it has a relational outcome: a member whose membership has been questioned at the Ward level cannot be a National Chairman without an overhang even if the establishment of the party were to choose to overlook it for whatever reasons. Hence Ayu’s coming to terms with the suspension by ‘stepping aside’ from the National chairmanship. Of course, he is not stepping back because the trigger for the suspension is still there.

The trigger is the suspension of so many powerful members of the party at a go. Or, rather the timing of the suspension of Senator Chimaroke Nnamani, Pius Anyim, Ibrahim Shema, Ayo Fayoshe and Prof Denis Ityavar. Nnamani and Anyim are former presidents of the Senate. Initially, we mistook Chimaroke Nnamani, former governor of Enugu State for Ken Nnamani, the former Senate president who carries the prestige of the one under whom Obasanjo’s Third Term agenda was killed. Senator Anyim was additionally a Secretary to the Government of the Federation which is something, though it is lower than presidency of the Senate on the protocol list. Shema is a two-term governor of Katsina State and a Lawyer and Ityavar has been reported close to Ayu previously. Fayoshe can talk and make trouble. Above all is referring Ortom to be tried by a disciplinary committee. It was this action at a time the party still in the trauma of losing the presidential election did not appear able to understand. As each person tried to make sense of it from his own standpoint, Ayu was gradually standing on a weak stool.

With the chasm between himself and Ortom as well as between Ortom and Atiku Abubakar, he did not seem to be in any position to do anything to help himself even if he realized he had lost control. In a game of control and in which the National Chairmanship position did not put him in control of the party in Benue State, he had effectively become a sitting duck. His agreeing to step aside must be out of the realization that he had no chance of connecting quickly to those in control back home in Benue to reverse the suspension. With Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers backing Ortom and saying that Ayu ain’t seen nothing yet, Ayu’s political future is completely unclear. All that brings back the question as to how one of the best prepared minds for the job could end up this way. With the exception of Chief Solomon Lar, the first National Chairman of the PDP in Interim capacity, it will be difficult to get another PDP National Chairman with Ayu’s credentials for the job. No future Chairman of the party is going to have been a founder. Even Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the first president of the PDP was not a founder.

Is this the eclipse of the star? Dr. Ayu has always been a high flyer in terms of political offices. He came to limelight as Branch Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) at the University of Jos in the 1980s. He crossed over into politics, shortly emerging as Senate president in the twilight of the Babangida administration. When the Abacha administration came in, he emerged as a Minister. The same thing in 1999 when the Obasanjo administration came in. he left that government dramatically and went into oblivion in the event of the clash between Obasanjo and his deputy, Atiku Abubakar. Ayu was an Atiku Abubakar supporter in that clash and would have emerged very high if Atiku had prevailed over Obasanjo in the 2007 presidential contest when Obasanjo single handedly fielded Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. This is obviously a flowing story which must have a sequel. At the moment, the Ayu side of the story is still missing.