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ANALYSIS: As Ayu fights the PDP curse of disgracing its national chairman out of office

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The current internal crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could lead to an implosion and truncate any chance it has of wresting power from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2023.

The dissenting voices in the party has made any hope of a united house seen like a mirage with Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike going out on a full blown war against the National Chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu on the one hand, and the different factions battling for the soul of the party.

As it stands, there are different factions and competing interests within the party with Wike seeming to have the upper hand in his fight to remove Ayu just like he spearheaded the removal of his one time ally, Uche Secondus.

However, any Nigerian old enough to have followed the political terrain since the return of democracy in 1999, will surely see what is going on in the PDP as a recurring political decimal, a kind of dejavu as the party has passed through this route on several occasions in the past.

The PDP has a penchant for disgracing and forcing its national chairman to leave office before their tenure runs its cause and what Ayu is facing today is nothing new as several past chairmen have passed through the same route while on seat.

From the formation of the party on August 31, 1998, which was actually a conglomeration of strange bed fellows, not less than seven chairmen have been forced to either resign or have been removed outright by contending internal forces within the party.

For the PDP, it has become a kind of tradition for its national chairman to be disgraced and forced out of office.

The curse of the PDP chairmanship has seen its pioneer chairman, former Plateau State governor, the late Solomon Lar, other chairmen like Barnabas Gemade, Audu Ogbeh, Ahmadu Ali, Vincent Ogbulafor, Okwesilieze Nwodo to Bamanga Tukur, and most recently, Secondus, all facing one form of turbulence or the other while in office in the 23 years the party has been in existence.

In those 23 odd years, the only PDP chairman who served out his tenure, albeit in tumultuous circumstances, was Ahmadu Ali, who managed to stave off all the darts thrown at him from different angles.

Lar who was the founding chairman of the party, was practically booted out of office after he fell out with former President Olusegun Obasanjo shortly after the 1999 presidential election which brought Obasanjo to office.

After assuming office as President, Obasanjo decided to take control of the party from the founding fathers which included Lar.

Obasanjo seamlessly removed Lar and replaced him with Gemade who was one of Obasanjo’s ‘right-hand’ man.

Gemade was instrumental to hatching several of Obasanjo’s many plots of becoming the absolute leader of the party including the removal of principal officers of the National Assembly and replacing them with the President’s men.

As PDP chairman from 2000 to 2006, Gemade became a willing tool for Obasanjo, and together, the president hounded the National Assembly, removing anyone they felt was an obstacle and deciding who became the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives.

That unholy partnership was however, truncated after Obasanjo had achieved his aims and it was time to kick out Gemade.

He was promptly booted out and replaced with another of the President’s favoured men, Audu Ogbeh.

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Ogbeh’s tenure became even more dramatic as he quickly fell out with Obasanjo because he opted to run the party independent of the presidency and that was his undoing. His independent mindset did not sit well with Obasanjo who needed to have absolute control of the party functionalities.

Before he knew what was coming, Audu Ogbeh was booted out of office and forced to resign, reportedly at gun point, after he squared up to Obasanjo with a letter advising the president to act on the anarchy that had taken over Anambra State, where the party’s godfather, Chris Uba, who was a known ally and supporter of the president had abducted the sitting governor, Chris Ngige, because he had refused to “play ball.”

After Ogbeh was forced to resign, he was replaced by Ahmadu Ali, himself an associate of Obasanjo.

Ali weathered the storm and managed to see out his tenure and was replaced by a former minister under Obasanjo, Vincent Ogbulafor at the party’s national convention in 2008.

Ogbulafor did not last long on the seat as his tenure was marked by bitter feuds first with then Abia State Governor, Theodore Orji, his state governor. Both men were enmeshed in a power struggle for the soul of the party in the state.

The local party crisis escalated to the national level with both men failing to come to a compromise to sheathe their swords.

There were several calls for Ogbulafor to step down but he adamantly refused to yield ground until he was slammed with a lawsuit on allegations of stealing over N100 million. After two tumultuous years, Ogbulafor finally threw in the towel and resigned in May 2010 while the corruption case dangled on his neck.

In came Okwesilieze Nwodo. But his tenure too was bugged by several controversies and he too was forced to leave under controversial circumstances after dispute with his state governor, Sullivan Chime of Enugu State which resulted in a High Court ruling sacking him on the grounds that he was not a card-carrying member of the party at the time he became the party chairman.

The next PDP chairman to fall under the curse was Bamanga Tukur who was also forced to resign under circumstances best described as controversial.

Tukur also became a victim of the haunting tradition of the party which has always seen its chairmen forced out of office.

The travails of Tukur began when he fell out with his Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako shortly after he came into office ahead of the 2015 election.

Not comfortable with Tukur’s chairmanship, Nyako, alongside other party leaders, called for his removal as they feared his closeness to then President Goodluck Jonathan would sway his support and turn over the party’s machinery to Jonathan.

Tukur’s removal brought in Secondus who was heavily backed by Wike as well as many party leaders from the southern bloc.

But Secondus himself soon fell into the PDP chairmanship conundrum after he fell out with Wike who openly vowed to have him removed. Secondus tried all he could to stave off the sword of Damocles that dangled dangerously on his neck.

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In the history of the party, he became the most ostracized party chairman with several allegations and court cases instituted against him.

In the end, the Wike gang got its way and Secondus was booted out of office, keeping in line the inglorious tradition of the PDP chairmanship hoodoo.

Now, barely a year after Ayu was sworn in as the PDP chairman after being elected in October 2021, he too is facing the party’s curse with the same Wike spearheading calls for his removal.

As it stands, all fingers are crossed with many wondering what will be the fate of Iyorchia Ayu as Wike and his allies like Bode George, Jonah Jang, Okezie Ikpeazu, and all the others calling for him to step down? Will he be facing the same disgrace other PDP chairmen in the past have faced?

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