Conrad Utaan, a Peoples Democratic Party member in Benue State, filed a suit that led to the stepping aside of the PDP National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu. In this interview with JOHN CHARLES, he explains why he filed the suit and the reasons for the party’s defeat in the state
Why did you file the suit against Peoples Democratic Party’s National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu?
I am a card-carrying member of the Peoples Democratic Party, and I have paid my dues to the party up to date. I feel very concerned that the party performed so woefully in the last elections. We lost all the elections in the state. We only won one House of Representatives seat out of 11, one Senate seat out of three, and just seven state assembly seats out of 32. We lost the governorship election, and of course, PDP came second in the governorship election and third in the presidential election in the state.
The party’s national chairman, Ayu, is from this state, and we expected that we should have done better. We naturally expected that, as is done in saner climes after such a colossal outing, Ayu would have willingly thrown in the towel without anyone asking him to leave. We waited for one to two weeks, but instead of us hearing about his stepping down, he took further steps to divide the party by issuing suspensions to other members of the party who had ever worked harder than him, like Prof. Ityavyar (Dennis).
So, I thought that sitting back was not proper, so I approached the court. I heard that the ward executive had suspended him, and I thought it was important to give what they have done legal backing to help him pave the way so that the party can move on.
There is this general impression that the failure of the PDP in Benue was caused by the state Governor, Samuel Ortom, who before the presidential election openly canvassed votes for the Labour Party.
What happened in the Rivers and Oyo states? What makes Benue so different? Rivers voted All Progressives Congress during the presidential election, as did Oyo State, but they all cleared their states for their party in the governorship and state assembly elections. Why didn’t that happen in Benue?
So it is not about whether the party could not build cohesion around its candidates for local elections; it was because (Iyorchia) Ayu got involved in anti-party activities by going around saying it was not proper to allow Ortom to go to the Senate, and that is the senatorial candidate of our party. We know about the meeting that they held on the eve of the election.
Everybody who had an axe to grind with the leadership of the party in Benue rallied around Ayu. Though he can’t bring people together, it is easier to destroy than to build. That is what happened in Benue; it was not about the fact that our candidate is unpopular. A lot of funds were pumped into undermining the credibility of our party on the eve of the general elections, which is why we lost.
Is it true that you are being used by Ortom and other G-5 governors?
I am not a state employee, nor am I a member of Governor Ortom’s staff; as you are aware, I have only been a member of this party for about a year. I have always been in the opposition, and I have been properly schooled as to what party politics is. I know what is right and what is wrong.
So I don’t need Governor Ortom or any G-5 governor to tell me what is needed to be done for the party. I don’t know any governors in the G-5 apart from Ortom. And my relationship with Governor Ortom is limited to the fact that he is the leader of the party in the state and, of course, Benue State Governor.
Does Ayu have grassroots support in Benue?
For somebody who lost his polling unit, his ward, his local government, his senatorial district, the state, and the presidential elections… Let me leave you to answer that question. I think it is rhetorical.
Mind you, Ayu won the election in 1992 to become a senator and subsequently president of the Senate.
What were the circumstances that led to his election? He didn’t win the primary; he was roundly beaten by Prof. David Iornem. It was Rev. Fr. Moses Adasu who said that, for the sake of equity, it would not be proper for us not to allow him (Ayu) to go. Since then, he has never won an election anywhere. So he has no grassroots support anywhere in Benue State.
You know that sometimes mistakes are made by the leadership of the party. In Benue, we never expected that someone like Ayu would be pulled from political oblivion and be made to occupy the exalted office of the party’s national chairman. He cannot gather 10 people, even in his council ward.
Is there hope that Ayu will still come back as the party’s national chairman?
We do not expect that to happen if the PDP wants to rebuild itself, not from people like Ayu, because he has no capacity to pull 10 people together. If this party should move on like we aspire for it to, we expect that in the next year, this party should re-energise itself and endear itself to the people of Benue and Nigeria, but this cannot happen under Ayu because he can’t bring the party together.
It’s quite painful for someone who is the party’s national chairman to have 13 members out of 17 of his ward go and pass a vote of no confidence in him. It speaks volumes about the kind of person he is.
What changes do you expect the party to make after Ayu’s exit?
From personal and general points of view, of course, I have a matter against Ayu that will come up on April 17. I don’t expect to lose. I want to win, so, inadvertently, I don’t want him as national chairman of the PDP.
On a larger scale, I think for the PDP to rebuild, we should probably look towards dissolving the national executive, holding a mini-convention to elect a new executive of our party at the national level to give more bite, more energy, more vigour, and energising the party in a way that we can start to rebuild the party, to reposition it, and prepare for the next four years when we will be having another round of elections. That is my expectation.
There is this impression in the state now that since you caused the stepping aside of Senator Ayu as national chairman, a Tiv young man is pulling down his kinsman; are you not afraid that your name will enter the black book?
But Ayu contributed to the removal of Barnabas Gemade as national chairman of the PDP; nobody killed him. Looking at it beyond the point of pulling somebody down, there is nothing wrong with doing the right thing, irrespective of whose ox is gored.
Iyorchia Ayu suspended Prof. Ityavyar from the party; is he not a Tiv man? Ayu invited Governor Ortom to face the disciplinary committee of the party in Abuja with the possible intention of expelling him from the party. Is he not a Tiv man? What is Tiv’s right to start where others have stopped? We are all Tiv people, and for every decision, we make in life, we take responsibility for the consequences. I am prepared to defend my action against Ayu anytime, anywhere.
It’s not about Ayu, it’s not about me as a person, it’s not about the Tiv race, but about the betterment of our country to have true democratic tenets in our party politics so that the party will be able to deliver dividends of democracy to Nigerians.
So if we can elect new leadership, bring about a better government in Nigeria, and return PDP to power in Benue and Nigeria, I would have delivered the dividends of democracy to our people.
Will it matter who removes whom? No, it wouldn’t to the ordinary man on the street, who does not care who is the chairman of PDP, but he cares whether he has life; he cares if he has water running through his tap; he cares if he has good health care; he cares whether he can put food on his table; those things are more important than all the sentimental and parochial issues.
Since the case started, is there any fear of a threat to your life?
Well, I don’t dwell on street speculation or rumour. To be honest with you, I have not received any threats from anyone. I don’t think my life is being threatened because I still sit with my family in my house, my doors are open 24 hours a day, and nothing has changed about the security around me. I feel comfortable knowing that I have done the right thing.
People have been calling me from across the country, asking, why I waited so long, saying that if I had done this before the general election, PDP would have probably won.
As I look back, I regret that I should have made this move before the general election, and possibly, the story could have been different by now across the country.
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