By Olusegun Olanrewaju
Embattled national chairman of the crisis-ridden Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Iyorchia Ayu, is not having it easy at all at the moment. He is in a furnace, fighting the political battle of his life. and like many of the terrors that have come his way on the political turf, it appears things are not going to be easy in the days coming up, in the build-up to Nigeria’s 2023 general election.

Simply put, Ayu’s days may have already been numbered, even though his political mentor, Atiku Abubakar, is bent on papering the crack for his survival at all costs.

Already, a sentence is dangling on his head, imposed by party Board of Trustees (BoT) member, Bode George, that the party chair must quit office before the end of this week.

George had consistently towed the path of the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, who over a period had insisted that Ayu must vacate the seat to pave the way for a southern chairman for peace to return to the party.

The life BoT member believes that traducers want his head on the platter over his role in the emergence of Atiku, the Wazirin Adamawa, as the presidential candidate of the leading opposition party in Nigeria.

The Gboko, Benue State-born, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria-trained sociologist, an erstwhile Marxist ideologue at the University of Jos in Plateau State, now sits atop a combustible political tendency.

As the leader of Nigeria’s largest opposition party, the PDP, at the moment, he is gutted by the politics of Ayu-must-go at all costs, especially by the principal opponent in the presidential primary that threw up Atiku, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, and his formidable political force, that he must quit office at all costs.

Trouble, analysts say, lies in the fact that the ex-Senate President may as well have decided not to take it easy stepping down from office as he did when he was presiding over the affairs of the Upper Chamber in 1993.

Having taught courses on the art and science of Marxism, and being the chairman of the Jos University chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), he is no stranger to battling in the trench.

Since entering politics, Ayu has been influential among the majority of Tiv people in his home state of Benue, who may likely back him in the new wave of warfare he is now draped in.

Born on November 15, 1952, in Gboko, Northern Region, Ayu was the fifth President of the Senate in Nigeria. He is considered a prominent political figure, respected elder statesman, and distinguished ABU alumnus, with media experience.

Trouble is, this time around, he is fighting the forces of another lion in the den of politics, Wike, who calls the shots in Nigeria’s oil-rich state of Rivers. But, like the proverbial perception of people from his ethno-cultural background, Ayu could also be heady. True to that projection, he has openly declared that, contrary to the growing opposition to his stay in office, he has no plan to resign.

U.S. warns Putin of ‘catastrophic’ consequences over nuclear weapons

He has also shown a trait of alleged stubbornness. Recently, in the heat of the Ayu-must-go war, he described the big fishes gunning for his head as ‘children’.

This earned him no small flaks, particularly from the biggest of them all, Wike, who gave it hard; that the ‘children’ the national chair was referring to, indeed, were the eggheads in the party who drew him out of poverty and irrelevance, and pave his path to office as the national chair of PDP.

Weeks ago, he further ruffled no small feathers when he declared that “a party is not built on individuals”, an obvious reference to the strong Wike clan.

Indeed, his path to the office as national chair was not easy. Photography-loving sixty-nine-year-old Ayu (one of his children once attested to this in an interview with The Punch) had earlier had a baptism of political fire when he was elected President of the Senate during the Third Republic between 1992 and 1993.

He later served in various ministerial positions in the military regime of the late General Sani Abacha and the civilian dispensation of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007). He was once an education minister.

The nerve-wracking politicking that threw up Ayu as the chairman of PDP peaked after a frosty relationship between the erstwhile chairman, Uche Secondus, and other stakeholders of the party, especially Wike, with whom he is now embroiled in another war of strength.

Despite all attempts to oust him from office over imbalances in power configuration between political offices rooted in the North-South divide, he dismissed earlier news that filtered into the public domain after he travelled overseas as ‘malicious’.

The Media Office of the National Chairman of the crisis-festered party dismissed the news of the purported resignation of Senator Ayu, as reckless, malicious, and a figment of the imagination of those peddling the information.

In the present crisis, arguments on the need to quit office ostensibly spun around his free will and offer to step down if the presidential candidate of the party for the 2023 elections emerges from the same northern block as him.

While some believe that Ayu’s sack could plunge the PDP into a deeper crisis, others believe that there would be no respite, and that, indeed, such a development is the panacea for the party to avoid doom.

For instance, one of the spokesmen of Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organisation, Charles Aniagwu, has said that sacking would plunge the ambitious party into crisis.

But Wike, one of the main financiers of the party, has labelled Ayu as an arrogant ingrate who must be kicked out before he paddles the ship of the party to the shores of death.

Seven die in Lagos bus fire accident

Wike had during a media chat on Friday, accused Ayu of corruption by obtaining the sum of N1bn in the guise of funding the party, but never remitted the money to the party’s account.

He emphasised that the PDP boxed itself in its current quagmire and to disentangle itself the remedies will include making sacrifices that engender inclusivity.

For people like the former deputy national chairman of PDP now a member of the party’s BoT, Ayu just has to be fired immediately to balance the interest of the south and ensure victory in the presidential and other elections.

As it is, there is palpable uncertainty over Iyorchia Ayu’s fate.

Since entering politics, the influential online media platform, Wikipedia notes, Ayu “has been influential among the majority of Tiv people in his home state of Benue”.

But his political career, like many others, has been run in a topsy-turvy manner. Elected a senator in the Third Republic on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), he became the Senate President. However, in November 1993, he was impeached as the senate president because he was a strong opponent of the Ernest Shonekan-led Interim National Government established by the late General Sani Abacha, after the then-elected president, M.K.O Abiola, had been prevented from assuming office.

However, he later became the Minister for Education in the same Abacha military government.

Ayu assisted in the 1998 -1999 campaign to elect Obasanjo on the PDP platform. Obasanjo later appointed him Industry Minister from 1999 to 2000.

As Minister of Internal Affairs in 2003, Ayu announced that Nigeria was negotiating security pacts with its northern neighbours, Niger and Chad, to clamp down on smuggling, human trafficking, and cross-border banditry.

During a cabinet reshuffle in June 2005, Ayu was reassigned to become Minister of Environment.

He was later to be appointed Minister of Internal Affairs. During a cabinet reshuffle in June 2005, Ayu was reassigned to become Minister of Environment. In December 2005, Obasanjo dismissed Ayu, giving no reason.

•Later career/connection with Atiku

After falling out with Obasanjo, Ayu left the PDP and joined the Action Congress (AC). He was head of the campaign to elect Vice President Atiku Abubakar as president on the AC platform in April 2007. In February 2007, Ayu was arrested and later arraigned by a Federal court on charges of terrorism. He was later released on bail. In March 2007, he spoke out against the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to include Atiku’s name on the list of candidates.

After falling out with Obasanjo, Ayu left the PDP and joined the Action Congress (AC). He was head of the campaign to elect Vice President Atiku Abubakar as president on the AC platform in April 2007. In February 2007, Ayu was arrested and later arraigned by a Federal court on charges of terrorism. He was later released on bail. In March 2007, he spoke out against the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to include Atiku’s name on the list of candidates.

When he became the chairman of the PDP National Working Committee (NWC), the onus, observers like former Plateau State, Jonah Jang, noted, fell on Ayu to pay Atiku back. And that, analysts say, is what is now tearing away the soul of PDP.

So, it is not easy to hazard a guess as to why Atiku is hesitating to get him fired. “I can’t force Ayu to resign,” Atiku insisted. But to Wike and his loyalists, he may as well go to hell.