After enduring the tantrums Rivers Gov Nyesom and his cohort had been throwing to make him resign as PDP chairman, Iyorcha Ayu has finally found his voice.
In an interview with the BBC Hausa Service on Wednesday, Ayu spoke at length, referring to Wike and his caucus in the PDP as children and ignorant.
“When we started PDP, these children were not around,” Ayu said. “They are children who do not know why we formed the party.”
So when the party floated in 1999, where was Wike, now the most valuable politician in the PDP calling on Ayu to resign or hell will break loose?
In PDP’s history, Wike was a local government chairman many knew little about in his Obio Akpor LGA, in Rivers, under former Gov. Peter Odili. Then, Ayu was a minister in former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s cabinet.
But Ayu had been in leadership, and in ‘power’, long before Wike caught a whiff of his local government office.
From 1992 to 1993, when Wike was still memorizing cases and writing semester exams at the Rivers State University, Ayu was slamming the gavel as Senate President in the National Assembly.
And all this while, Wike’s man Friday now, Gov. Sam Ortom, a road transport unionist who became transport minister in 2011, was probably dodging the VIO and the FRSC in Benue.
So Ayu insisted the PDP leaders will not allow some namby-pambies and ignoramuses to reign unhindered.
“We will not allow any individual to destabilise our party.”
He also said, with emphasis, he would not resign.
“I was voted as PDP chairman for a four-year tenure and I’m yet to complete a year. Atiku’s victory doesn’t affect the chairman’s position,’ he said.
“I won my election based on our party’s constitution. I didn’t commit any offence; I’m only reforming the party. So, I’m not bothered by all the noises.”