Many Nigerian can remember how the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, held a successful National Convention two months ago where many of the current officers were elected......READ THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
Well, one surprising thing was the fact that many of the top officers of the party were elected unopposed. The one that left many wondering what could have made it work was that a former Senate President, Iyorchia Ayu from Benue State emerged the PDP National Chairman unopposed! This was made possible majorly because the powerful forces in the party heavily backed him.
It would be recalled that the PDP Governors backed Ayu for the post. The Board of Trustees of the party, various caucuses and the zonal leaders all supported him. Since the powers that be in the party have decided that Ayu should ascend that top post, he has a smooth ride to victory. What this means is that Ayu needs to be careful as he rules the party. As a political party, the powerful forces are all politicians with political interests to actualize now or later.
If for some reasons Ayu fails to fulfil their expectations by meeting or helping them to realize their political ambitions, they may team up against him and push for his removal. The history of PDP is full of such happenings. These powerful forces cannot be stopped by the smaller individuals and groups. The same way they helped Ayu to win without any strong opposition is the way they may team up against him if things do not work as they planned.
As pointed out, PDP’s history is full of such removals of National Chairman. A report by The Punch detailed such removals since the formation of PDP in 1998. More recently, Senator Ali Modu-Sheriff was backed like Ayu. But, months later, the same forces that backed him teamed up to remove him and they replaced him with Senator Ahmed Makarfi who was the Caretaker Committee Chairman of the party. That is not all, Prince Uche Secondus was heavily backed to win the post in December 2017. However, few months to the end of his tenure, the forces teamed up to push Secondus aside even as the court cases lingers.
Finally, they teamed up to heavily back Ayu from Benue. Ayu has been sworn in alongside his fellow Excos. It is very important to point out that one of the outgoing Excos, Diran Odeyemi, on behalf of his colleagues warned Ayu during his inauguration to be very careful because the forces that backed him today to emerge winner may still team up to remove him tomorrow. Odeyemi was bold enough to tell Ayu this bitter truth that has been a recurring decimal in PDP. It is left for Ayu to play his cards wisely because no PDP National Chairman has completed his tenure successfully without having issues that usually led to truncated tenure.