A Personal Tribute
by
Prof. Terhemba Wuam,
Department of History,
Kaduna State University,
Kaduna, Nigeria.
Honourable Shima Tordue Ayati, served Nigeria at all the three tiers of government. He was a Councillor at the local government level, Special Assistant and Special Adviser at the state level; and a Presidential Aide at the federal level. His time as LG councillor (1987-1989) was during the aborted Third Republic and his later appointments were in the Fourth Republic. Ayati, who was also a distinguished author, died in Makurdi on 21 December 2024 at the age of 65.
Shima Ayati was a great son of Nigeria. A country he grew up loving and to which he dedicated his life to serving. He offered to Nigeria and to humanity the best of his intellectual resources. These allied with an abundance of energy and zeal to bring about the best and most fruitful outcomes in his undertakings. The endeavours which occupied his eventful life were often at international, national, state and local levels. While Nigeria and the love of country was at the centre of the Shima Ayati’s undertakings, he was also first and foremost a true son of Tiv who believed in the dignity and honour of his people and who strove to improve their material conditions while in their service.
I worked with Hon. Shima Ayati as his assistant in the presidency and watched him closely in action. Ayati was a committed politician, intellectual and citizen of Nigeria. He worked well and excelled with the elite and was also a man of the people and was always at home with the masses. I observed how he answered all phone calls without hesitation and attended to the needs of all who called on him. Sometimes, I feared that he was overstretching himself on behalf of others to the detriment of his personal and family’s welfare and well-being; but that was Hon. Shima Ayati. He was a man whose generosity was not pretentious, but which emanated from the largeness and goodness of his heart.
One remarkable characteristic that served Ayati well was his near photographic memory. He could remember almost everything. He just needed to have seen you once and for both the high and mighty he would instantly recall names. He valued friendship and would go out of his way to show up at critical moments in the lives of his friends and associates as well as at state and community programmes and projects.
His death when it came brought to a sad end the life of a great and distinguished Nigerian public servant and an illustrious son of Tivland whose contributions went beyond politics and governance and extended into making profound intellectual contributions in the fields of political philosophy and literature. Ayati’s contributions to political discourse among the political class ranks among the best in Nigeria and was quite outstanding in Benue State.
Hon. Shima Tordue Ayati was born on 13 December 1959. He was the son of Tordue Ayati, a prominent member of the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) in the colonial era and the march to independence/ the First Republic. As a key political associate of Senator J.S. Tarka, Tordue Ayati supported and fought for the realization of the goals of a more equitable federal structure in Nigeria where self-determination would be granted to the various ethnic-nationalities such as the numerous minorities in Nigeria, of which the Tiv were a principal and core component of. The goal of the UMBC agitations of the 1950s and 1960s would eventually be realized with the abolition of the regional structure and the creation of twelve states in Nigeria in 1967. The elder Ayati had consequently imbued his son with the spirit of politics as a service to the people.
Ayati embraced the vocation of politics early in his life. The route he followed, however, took a number of detours. Fresh of out secondary school, he became an Assistant Legislative Clerk with the old Benue State House of Assembly in 1980 and 1981. In the course of duty, he saw legislative action closely as a staff of the State Assembly in the Second Republic of President Shehu Shagari and Governor Aper Aku of Benue State. In the Assembly, despite his relative youthfulness, he worked closely with the leading political figures of that era in 1980 and 1981. These were Benue political titans of the Second Republic which included distinguished men such as Chief Isaac Kpum, Hon. C.T. Gaza, Hon. Ayua Num, Hon. Isaiah Tingir and Hon. Samuel Adoor.
Although the Second Republic was fated not to last, Ayati’s time of barely two years in the Assembly as a legislative clerk equipped him with vital political knowledge and insights and a first-hand orientation of how politics operated on a grand scale at the level of the state; and in addition to his father’s political orientation, clearly established for him his chosen path and vocation in later life.
After his service in the Benue State House of Assembly in 1981, Ayati proceeded to earn his National Certificate of Education (NCE) and by 1984 proceeded to serve the nation at the Boys Secondary School, Nanka, Anambra State as a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Upon returning to Benue State after national youth service, he was engaged in the services of the Benue State Government as an Assistant Education Officer and posted to Torov Community Secondary School, Chito, Ukum Local Government Area from 1985 to 1987. The period of this sojourn into teaching and contribution to the education of Benue’s youth was in the midst of the then episodic military eras of post-independent Nigeria, hence his detour into the educational sector. He started as a teacher under the regime of Major General Muhammadu Buhari in 1985 and continued under General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida up to 1987.
His time in the classroom was however, brief, lasting barely three years. The call of politics and service to the people pulled him from the classroom as Babangida initiated his return to democracy programme. The 1987 local government elections were the first nationwide elections under the Babangida transition and were a trial run towards electoral politics. With the ban on political parties still on, the elections were on a non-party basis and candidates offered themselves without political affiliations for the elections. As Tonnie Iredia, Nigerian broadcaster and academic noted, voters used “their knowledge of the traits, charisma and integrity of individual candidates to make their choices” in the 1987 elections.
Ayati became involved in the political process and contested the local government elections of 1987. He stood for and was elected by his people to represent them on a non-party basis, where, as Iredia noted, voters considered his charisma and integrity and elected him as their councilor. With victory at the 12 December 1987 nationwide local government elections, he took his seat in the Katsina-Ala Local Government Council from 1987-1989. He thus began his political career and entry into governance at the level closest to the mass of the people Subsequently, despite his later meteoritic rise to the apex of the nation’s political firmament, Ayati never forgot his grassroots origins and beginnings. He always returned to his base and constantly kept in touch with his people and was one of the eminent Tiv sons who condemned the military invasion of Zaki-Biam in which some members of his extended family lost their lives and in his last days due to the challenge of herders-farmers conflict, became a compelling advocate in drawing attention to the devastation the conflict was causing in the Ayati community and the need for interventions to resolve the challenge of insecurity in Sankera axis of Benue State where he hailed from.
His time in the Council would rekindle his interest in politics and service; a process which would then be elevated to service at the state and Federal levels in the years ahead. The term in the Council of Katsina-Ala Local Government of Benue State from 1987 to 1989, established Ayati firmly in the political consciousness of his people within Katsina-Ala and later Ukum Local Government Area as a rising political figure of note.
In order to better prepare himself for higher political roles so as to contribute more meaningfully to national development, Hon. Ayati, sought and got admission into the newly established Benue State University (BSU) where he studied for a degree in Economics as a member of the pioneer class. The years spent in BSU along with his political experience would serve him well in both state and national politics in the years ahead. It was in BSU that we first met, he, majoring in Economics; while I was reading History in the early 1990s.
Ayati’s time in the university coincided with the June 12 Annulment, the stepping aside of Gen. Babangida, the brief interregnum of the Interim National Government (ING) headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan and the coming of the General Sani Abacha junta which lasted for about half a decade from 1993 to 1998; paving the way for the accelerated transition programme of General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
The Abubakar transition to democracy, building on the processes began since the aborted Third Republic quickly ushered in the Fourth Republic. In the re-established democracy of party politics, Ayati was right there at the beginning and was part and parcel of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that rode to power in Benue State with Senator (Dr.) George Akume as governor and General Olusegun Obasanjo as president.
Governor Akume would subsequently appoint Ayati as a key Special Assistant on Inter-Party Relations to the Governor. It was while he was in this position of coordinating inter-party affairs in Benue State for the governor’s office that conflict between the Tiv and Jukun broke out in Taraba State and also between the Tiv and other communities in Nasarawa State.
The Tiv-Jukun communal crisis that erupted in 2001 saw a significant displacement of the Tiv in Taraba with a high influx of displaced Tiv arriving various towns in Benue, with Makurdi as the main destination. This influx of displaced persons arriving from Taraba and Nasarawa states created a humanitarian emergency. It was in this humanitarian emergency that Governor George Akume turned to Hon. Shima Ayati as his trusted official to help with the process of handling the crisis and providing succour to the large number of Tiv whose displacement from their ancestral homes had turned them, in the words of Prof. Ter-Rumun Avav, into “refugees in their own country.”
The appointment of Ayati as Chairman of the Tiv-Jukun Communal Crisis Relief Management Committee by Governor Akume would become the major preoccupation of Ayati for the next two years and covered the period of the military invasion of Zaki Biam and other towns in 2001. The chronicle of the military attack will be well documented by Human Rights Watch and highlights the part Ayati played in documenting for posterity the accounts of the events.
In connection with the Tiv-Jukun conflict, Ayati also became a principal witness at the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the crisis. He was also a member of the Benue State Team at the Kuru Presidential Peace Retreat which advanced recommendations towards the re-integration and rehabilitation of the displaced Tiv back to Taraba and Nasarawa states. The Taraba crisis which had spilled into Benue had tremendous impact on Benue in taking the attention of the governor and key appointees like Shima Ayati and the general state governance apparatus away from the day-to-day focus on advancing Benue’s development needs.
At the end of Senator Akume’s first term in office as governor and his re-election for a second term as well as that of Obasanjo and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as President and Vice President respectively, Ayati was in 2003 appointed as a Presidential Aide and posted as Special Assistant to the Vice President on Special Duties. With the appointment, Ayati was now at the heart of the presidency and presidential power in Nigeria. He now held a frontline seat and role in contributing to national governance.
Ayati discharged his duties as a presidential aide with distinction and to the satisfaction of his principal, Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Among others, the Vice President, whose office was overseeing the organisation of the Eight (8th) All African Games appointed Ayati as Representative of Mr. Vice President to the Local Organising Committee of the All African Games (COJA), which was in essence the African Olympics. He excelled in this role through his commitment and support to the committee in ensuring that the liaison between the Presidency and the LOC was properly coordinated and all needs were treated, thus ensuring the success of the games, at which Nigeria emerged as winner with the highest number of medals.
Hon. Ayati with his specialization as an economist and technocrat also served on the Secretariat of the National Economic Council Meetings and was a delegate to the Nigeria-South Africa Bi-National Commission (BNC). He also served on the 2003 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) secretariat on behalf of the Vice President and represented the Vice President on several other high-profile committees, programmes and projects, events and other state matters of great importance and participated in submission of vital reports and actions.
In Aso Rock Villa, Ayati also cultivated and made great friendships with colleagues and associates at the highest levels of governance in the country. Of special note was his friendship and collaboration with Dr. Adinoyi Ojo Onukaba. The late Dr. Onukaba, then one of Nigeria’s leading lights in journalism, had been the former managing director of Daily Times and was Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media. With others, these aides formed a formidable team and collaborated to the success of the Office of the Vice President of Nigeria.
While in the Presidency, Ayati continued to think of how to contribute to resolving the thorny issue of peace between the Tiv and Jukun in Benue, Taraba and Nasarawa states. He therefore organized meetings and forums between prominent Tiv and Jukun personalities and promoted inter-ethnic alliances and dialogues. The highpoint of these initiatives of bridge-building which he had been promoting which would sadly not come to fruition was his well-conceived and articulated programme for the Tiv-Jukun Friendship Dinner as a national peace event at Sheraton Hotel in 2004, which ran into hitches at the eleventh hour. Such challenges illustrate the difficulties involved in promoting national dialogue and understanding among ethnic nationalities and groups, where politics may sometimes alter the course of good intentions. Despite such a setback Ayati was undaunted and continued with the process of courting significant actors across inter-ethnic lines to foster alliances for peace and understanding between the Tiv and Jukun, whose links have intermingled for centuries.
In spite of his successes at the presidency, Hon. Shima Ayati’s time in Aso Rock was a very trying moment for the Vice-Presidential Office. It was obvious to all political observers that in the second term of President Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku, the relationship between the two had soured; and the question of presidential succession was one in which both the president and the vice president had different outlooks. For Obasanjo, the matter of a third term agenda was allowed free rein among his inner circle and was widely propagated, thus making the quest for the presidency by Atiku in 2007 appear as some sort of dissension. Thus, Ayati, right from the time of his appointment in 2003 was stepping into a divided presidency. His working relations with his principal, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Turakin Adamawa and the Zege Mule U Tiv, as has been shown was, however, immaculate.
The fallout between the president and the vice president would eventually see President Obasanjo terminate the official appointment of all presidential aides assigned to the Vice President’s Office. Atiku’s response was to retain and incorporate Ayati and others into his national campaign for president. This was the background that eventually saw Honourable Shima Ayati emerge as the Benue State gubernatorial candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the 2007 governorship election in Benue State with Atiku as the presidential candidate of ACN, whose national leader was Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In the 2007 elections for governor of Benue State, Ayati and ACN polled the third highest votes after Gabriel Suswam of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Professor Daniel Saror of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).
Ayati’s campaign for governor is worth remembering. He believed that the stage was ripe to launch Benue into an economic take-off. He thus articulated a 34-page policy document which explicated his campaign mission for bringing about a new Benue of accelerated development. This was tagged The Take-off Agenda for Benue State: Policy Statement for the Benue State 2007 Gubernatorial Contest. In this document Ayati had stated clearly the desire and objective to “face the challenges of transforming Benue into a prosperous society, one in which a greater percentage of the people will live above poverty and enjoy the basic amenities of life.”
In addition, Hon. Shima Ayati equally sent out a letter to the people of Benue State in September of 2006. The theme of this direct letter to fellow citizens was titled “Leading Benue into the Take-Off Stage of Its Development.” The letter articulated what the Take-Off Vision was and how if elected he would achieve it. Ayati’s vision in the letter was “to empower the Benue man to face the challenges of today; it is a vision to make the people of Benue the sole purpose of government.” Ayati’s goal was “all about moving the Benue economy from its present status to a position of self-sustained economic growth and development.”
As an economist, Ayati’s focal mission as he illustrated would have been the “Empowerment of Benue citizens through development initiatives and policies that are specifically targeted at wealth creation and human resource development as the basic foundation for economic prosperity.” Candidate Ayati certainly knew what was required to transform Benue and articulated it as such. He saw economic development as the sector that would lift the state to a position of becoming a developed and advanced polity.
As such, these two documents which he developed are worthy of study by Benue leaders and students of development. In them can be accessed nuggets of development wisdom and enduring ideals distilled by an economist, politician and intellectual who thought long and hard about turning Benue into a development powerhouse. Ayati’s ideas, then and now are still very relevant as Benue is yet to take-off as he had envisaged.
Ayati’s last official position in government was as a Special Adviser on Intergovernmental Affairs to the Governor of Benue State in the second term of the administration of Chief (Dr) Samuel Ortom from 2019. The appointment was made in recognition of his political credentials and ability to offer selfless service for the greater good of state and people.
Aside from politics, Ayati was a profound and philosophical writer and authored four books. These were the two biographies: Charles Tangul Gaza: Tar Nongon u Tiv written in Tiv language and E.T. Orodi: Tiv Integration and Power Politics in Nigeria; and two works of fiction: Shawon -Agonies of Life, and Ahumbeism – A Windy Life. In Charles Tangul Gaza, Ayati recounts the inspiring story of Honourable Charles Tangul Gaza who was elected to the Federal House of Representatives in the 1959 General Elections to represent Wukari Division on the platform of the Action Group (AG)/United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) alliance with more than fifty percent of the votes. The account leading to the pre-independence elections and the fallout of AG/UMBC victory in the broader context of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) domination of Northern Nigeria; and the local political realities and rivalries of inter-group relations form the core of the book.
The Honourable E.T. Orodi biography is a tour de force on Tiv politics in the colonial 1950s and the First Republic of the 1960s. The book sets Tiv politics in a national context and the actions and motivations of major political figures like E.T. Orodi, J.S. Tarka, E.G. Gundu, H.O. Abaagu, Gondo Aluor and Ahmadu Bello among others on how to structure either an exclusive or inclusive federal state.
The book is at the very heart of the vital question of whether the Tiv should be outsiders and insiders within the national power structure and how best this can be achieved, whether in opposition or as members of the ruling elite; and even how the Tiv should organize themselves to achieve this task to their advantage. Ayati interrogates these issues in E.T. Orodi: Tiv Integration and Power Politics in Nigeria through the examples of Hon. Orodi and that of Senator J.S. Tarka. This is done alongside elucidation on how multiparty politics can be more effectively organized in Tivland with a view towards relevance at the political centre.
His first novel, Shawon – Agonies of Life is a fictional narrative of the Tiv in the Upper and Lower Benue Valleys of Nigeria and accounts for life in the precolonial era right through the Fourth Republic. The characters grapple with the question of indigeneship and settlers and where the Tiv belongs in a Nigeria where state creation brought about new identities and where conflict can drive people away from their ancestral homes in states like Taraba and Nasarawa despite having roots that go back for centuries. A reading of this work will show that Ayati’s involvement with the Tiv-Jukun reconciliation and relief efforts as well as subsequent relocation of the IDPs back to Taraba were the inspiration for Shawon.
Ayati’s last novel, Ahumbeism – A Windy Life was published in 2017. This book like Shawon is equally rooted in the geo-political realities of Tivland, especially the rise of militias, herders’ conflicts, and communal conflicts. Ahumbeism is fiction in which Ayati presciently predicted the future. These two novels as the two political biographies are recommended reading and standout as Ayati’s most significant intellectual contribution to mankind.
When Ayati expressed his interest in the Tor Tiv contest in 2016, he did so as one who was deeply embedded in the culture of his people. As one who understood the Tiv cultural heritage with a deep appreciation of the present and its modernizing influences. He comprehended how modernity was equally a worthwhile goal for the Tiv of the twenty-first century, whose objective should now be to rapidly develop and positively transform into communities of material prosperity and robust social and cultural identity in a globalized and highly integrated world.
In his last days and away from government, Ayati’s chief concern was about the conflict situation in his community of Ayati which was at the receiving end of herders’ attacks. These attacks had turned Ayati town and environs in Ukum local government area into a veritable war zone. And Ayati as always sought Answers about how to bring about a lasting solution where understanding what was driving the conflict between herders and farmers could be addressed and workable ideas brought to the table.
In semi-retirement from active politics, he had taken on the task of unofficial spokesperson for the community in reaching out to the media and stakeholders in government and civil society about the crisis, both locally and internationally. For instance, in August 2024 when Ayati community was attacked and scores of people were killed, he reached out to about a dozen media houses to highlight the security plight and the deteriorating state of security in the area. Such proactive action made it possible for responses from official quarters to be activated.
Ayati had also continued to research and write. And when I last visited him at his residence in Makurdi in August of 2024, he discussed with me his work on chronicling the Tiv military contributions and sacrifices for Nigerian unity, especially during the Nigerian Civil War, when according to him Tiv soldiers had been a dominant presence at the front of the war to keep Nigeria one. He informed me of the interviews he had so far done with prominent Tiv military and war veterans and that his tentative title for the volume was We Did It For Them. The choice of such a title to him was to illustrate how despite the vast human sacrifices of the Tiv towards Nigerian nationhood, their stake in Nigeria and the country’s debt to her soldiers was yet to be fully acknowledged and appreciated. I had offered encouragement and hoped that a manuscript of the book, sooner or later would be ready. Unfortunately, death has interrupted the work of this great mind.
Honourable Shima Ayati was physically an imposing figure. His presence could not be missed on any occasion. He was tall, majestic and awe-inspiring. He was equally an imposing intellectual giant who has left his mark on Tiv, Benue and national politics and development discourse; as well as in the literature of his people in the works he left behind.
Ayati was a good man. A man who was always ready and willing to offer a helping hand to all. Ayati was not a rich politician, but he was an honourable one. A man of honour and of the people. He was a man who strove with his abilities to tow the right path. He used his intellect to create alternative visions of promise of a better Nigeria; and much more profoundly, he yearned for a Better Benue and Tivland devoid of conflict. The herders’ challenge and its devastating effect on his Ayati community was a herculean challenge that he was still trying to resolve when he passed on.
Hon. Shima Ayati’s departure is a great loss to his family. The family has lost a husband, father, uncle and pillar. Ayati, Ukum, Sankera, Tivland, Benue and Nigeria have lost an unequalled citizen and leader who placed the common good over personal concerns. He was a leader who truly understood what it meant to be a servant of the people.
My boss and friend Shima Ayati has departed, but his memory is cherished fondly and his legacies endure.
NIGERIA REVIEW OF BOOKS 