Ayu’s umbrella of corruption, By Prince Kassim Afegbua

It was reported in the social media sometime this year that Dr. Iyorchia Ayu refunded about N405m to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as proceeds of financial profligacy which has placed him under EFCC searchlight for sometime now.

When the report was published, I was expecting Dr Iyorchia Ayu, a very proud man, to refute the report and challenge the authors of that report; alas, he maintained conspiratorial silence and felt like a chicken beaten by unfriendly rainfall.

A man standing trial with EFCC suddenly emerged as the National Chairman of an opposition PDP that should come up clean in taking up the challenge of tasking the ruling party. In their habitual manner, they came with stained hands and feet, trying to offer alternative voices against what they perceive as misgovernance. In their little corner, they are found wanting with copious evidences of corruption and financial malfeasance.

And the morality to challenge the APC over claims of misrule has become heavily impaired. After the 2015 election, there were deliberate efforts put up to rebrand the party from the humongous perception of a corruption infested party, that lost out in the 2015 election as a result of that. Different names were suggested, but some of the founding fathers felt that the name, PDP had become a household name and that any attempt at changing the name might be counter-productive.

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The party rose from its ashes of defeat to apologize to Nigerians with a promise to change its old habits of corruption. The Uche Secondus-led executive was the first clear-cut attempt to let old wounds heal, but the unity list that produced that leadership further exposed the rotten underbelly of a party that was not ready to change.

No sooner had the Secondus-led executives started behaving in their familiar fashion when the chairman, Uche Secondus became a regular guest of the EFCC over vehicles he received on behalf of the party for which proper accounting was not provided. He was granted bail while his travel passport was seized. Months later, his National Working Committee started behaving like their predecessors.

The foulish smell that polluted the PDP started oozing out from Wadata Plaza. The party acquired a notorious sobriquet “wadata du casino” on account of the illicit transactions and squandermania that attended the finances of the party. Uche Secondus ended up being shown the exit door when resources that accrued to the party were not judiciously accounted for. It became a ding-dong affair.

Petitions were sent to the anti-graft commission and the party’s internal heists and profligacies were exposed. Monies raised from sales of nomination forms were not properly accounted for in line with international best practises of accounting and book keeping.

Before long, the party was broke, unable to pay salaries of staff, and had to relieve some staff of their employment. The party headquarters that had been under construction for which a bogus N27 billion had been expended, got stock in the midst of so much. Not a single block was added to take it forward from its abandoned status.

Till date, the headquarters is still left in its state of an abandoned project despite the huge resources that often time accrue to the party especially during periods of election. The PDP’s notoriety for corruption and financial crimes has become its second nature and this has also influenced the outcome of its 2022 presidential primaries which witnessed a dollar rain.

After Secondus’s exit, Iyorchia Ayu, “father of PDP’s children” emerged from the ashes of the internal squabbles, one had thought the party would have learnt from its bitter lessons. It was like the party had just provided an oil well to a man who was already being burdened by EFCC over corruption, and who was terribly broke and abandoned.

Day after day, allegations of corruption kept trailing the new chairman. New SUVs surfaced from different directions to shore up the chairman’s initial austere posture.

Nigeria’s “bigman” mentality suddenly crept in. Home furniture were rumoured to have been changed, old alliances and collapsed relationships were finetuned, and the beginning of a brand new, exotic lifestyle soon begun. But they are never last long. The traces of the fall-out of the odoriferous primary election started unveiling. PDP hitherto sobriquet of “Wadata du Casino” was now changed to ” Cash and Carry Du Wadata”.

Court verdicts were easily ignored once money exchanged hands. States were riddled with all manner of avoidable political crises, occasioned  bookby subterfuge and induced political emanations. Iyorchia Ayu could not rise to or above the occasion. All fingers were pointing in his direction as the chief mastermind of all the political machinations that tumbled the party’s constitution on its head.

They thought they had smartly abandoned zoning to suit the bulbous ego of their paymaster, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. They were only clever by half. The latest revelations by Governor Wike that Iyorchia Ayu collected one billion naira from someone in Lagos has further besmirched Ayu’s profile.

There have been series of petitions by well meaning party members calling for Ayu’s resignation, and also calling on the party to act in good time to save it from further plummeting.

The EFCC has also been invited to look into the matter and save the country the orgy of monumental corruption that has eaten deep into the fabric of PDP especially under Dr. Ayu, who reportedly gave directive for N28 million dubious housing allowance to be given to each member of the National Working Committee.

This is happening at a time when curious questions are being asked about the whereabout of the over N12 billion that is alleged to have been frittered away within a short spate of time.

While some of the party members are wondering what could have happened to that humongous resources, without proper accountability. Coming from an opposition party that was positioning itself to wrestle for power again, the recent behaviour of the party, exposes its habitual trade name: “PDP, SHARE THE MONEY”, and it only goes to confirm that the party has not learnt its ugly lessons. In civilised climes, Iyorchia Ayu ought to have saved his face by tendering his resignation to allow room for serious investigation into the weighty allegations hovering around his head. To remain stubborn to his stained principles is to miss the point altogether.

An opposition party like PDP that was hitherto notorious for financial profligacy, can only dig deeper into its own grave if serious intervention is not offered. The party was once described by its president candidate Atiku Abubakar as one whose fate and opportunity “is beyond redemption”.

Atiku Abubakar might be speaking in quite a prophetic sense because the present realities within PDP are beyond what just anyone could predict. If one reconciles the accusation that Atiku literarily “bought” the PDP ticket by deploying huge amount of resources, with the claim that Ayu collected N1 billion in Lagos as claimed by Governor Wike, coupled with the “housing allowance gift” that Ayu reportedly approved. for NWC members, one can draw a conclusion that the PDP has not repented of its corruption tag.

After the 2015 election when the party was trounced at the elections, PDP attempted to rebrand and perhaps change its name because the party felt her image had been badly battered. Aside from apologising to Nigerians, PDP tried to reinvent itself through several workshops and conferences that were meant to set a new agenda for the party.

As it is now turning out, PDP was only setting an agenda for further corruption and its habitual sobriquet; “PDP, SHARE THE MONEY” is becoming tellingly instructive of the character indices of the Party. The exposure of the N28 million so-called housing allowance as the Party’s publicist claimed, must be further investigated and appropriate sanctions carried out.

This idea of always treating every incidence as “family affairs” will continue to destroy the image of the party. The desperation of the present actors, especially those who defected to other parties and suddenly returned, like Ayu and Atiku, will derail the vision and mission of the party.

PDP is becoming synonymous with corruption, and each time there are attempts to rebrand the party along the path of credibility, the party will immerse itself in the aqua of self destruction.