Renowned Nigerian political economist, Pat Utomi, has declared that he will never accept any political appointment or seek public office again.
Naijaonpoint reports that Utomi made this declaration on Friday, May 9, during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, where he responded to the All Progressives Congress (APC) knocks.
It is worth recalling that the ruling party recently slammed Utomi for comparing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to Adolf Hitler.
Speaking via a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, the ruling party stated that it was reckless and insensitive for Utomi to liken Nigerians experience under the administration of Tinubu to the fascist conditions in Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
Morka argued that the freedom granted to Utomi to announce a shadow government without any consequences shows that the government is tolerant of the opposition.
He asserted that Utomi’s submission on Tinubu’s government is reckless, insensitive and beneath a man of his standing.
Responding, however, to Morka’s remarks at the interview on Channels Television, Utomi said, “You know, I don’t want to talk too much about Felix Morka. It would be disturbing of my sense of properness. Felix Morka is somebody I consider a friend, and I used to spend a lot of time in my house.
“One of the sad things that politics has done in Nigeria is that it has allowed us to see the sides of people that we did not think was possible. If we could only focus on issues, it would save us where we’ve come to in Nigerian politics. But there is a tendency to go ad hominem in the culture of the APC.”
He added, “If you get on the internet, one of the things you read there that I was saying about being born in the North, school in the West, and all of that, and knowing Nigeria, if you got on social media, you would think Nigerians are haters of each other. Because the venom which we are insulting people, this is Nigeria I grew up in, and Nsukka as an undergraduate, they called me Yoruba boy. People didn’t realise that I was actually Yoruba, because 80% of my friends in Nsukka were Yoruba boys.
“And my politics have always been around Southwest type things. So to come to where we are in Nigeria today, for me mentally, it’s just not possible to reconcile it. Is this Nigeria that I know? Is this how people think of each other? It’s not.
“So it’s clear that politicians have accentuated identity politics to be able to achieve personal goals. They don’t seem to realize how much it has destroyed the country, torn its fabric so that it makes achieving goals very, very difficult. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot.
“But I don’t know what their goals are. So I don’t want to speak to Felix Moka’s comments in any personal way. Let’s take on the issues that he’s brought up.”
Responding further on the claims by the ruling party that he (Utomi) was unilaterally declaring a shadow government following his recent remarks, the economist said, “Shadow government? Shadow government being, what did you say it was? In a presidential democracy. Yeah. Nothing can be more democratic than a group of citizens getting together to say, let’s find a structured way of asking governments to be more accountable.
“What could possibly be more democratic than that? You know, I like to usually preface this conversation with what we’ve done to the African. There is the Afrobarometer annual surveys that have gone on since 1999 of how Nigerians, Africans generally, but in every country specifically, with all kinds of details. I mean, I want every Nigerian who really wants to understand what has happened to our continent to go and study the Afrobarometer readings.
“It says that Africans still love democracy, cling on to it, but they are giving up more or less. They’re tired because their democracies are not working. Now, any really serious Democrat has to be concerned to read this data. Longitudinal, showing that people are fed up with what we call democracy. So, trying to make democracy find renewal, find revival, should be something that any true Democrat would embrace. My expectation is that something like this will be, you know, hailed by the APC.”
Utomi added, “Especially if you go back to the roots of the APC. I mean, I don’t want people to forget history. But how did the APC start? Felix Moka used to come and run around with me in the early days.
“You know, stay in the back of my car and tell me things. Some of the things I’m doing now. Felix Moka used to be the one urging me that I should be doing them.
“So, it’s sad. But in those early days, when the PDP was talking about it would be in power for, I don’t know, 60 years or something, some of us began to get worried. That’s where this whole thing started.
“The leadership newspaper, I think it was 2012, then had as its annual lecture political parties and invited me to give the keynote. It was in Ladi Kweli Hall at the Sheraton in Abuja. That day, almost all of those who formed the APC were sitting on the high table.
“From the man who’s in the villa now, Buhari, everybody. They were all lined up there. And I took time to go through what a political party was.
“And why it is valuable to the democratic process. As I said in another program that I appeared on not so long ago, I went back to the original 1911 book, actually, of political parties. And then brought it to now.”
The Only Things That Matter To Them Is Personal Ambition
Speaking further on the state of democracy and politics in Nigeria, Utomi said, “The ideas, the values, and the vision of society that the party captures essentially is what directs society’s path. If you are trying to achieve a certain goal, and people are defecting the way you reported now, the question is, how are we going to have a public conversation with people who we really don’t know exactly what they believe in? So that is the best problem. Political parties are not political parties in our country.
“Now, because political parties are not political parties, the only thing that matters is personal ambition. And one of the saddest parts of what has happened is that they’ve pushed thinking out of the door. Anybody who thinks is an enemy, and they must use personal insults.
“Somebody who came presenting to the party on another program I appeared on no more than two hours ago, said that, you know, I was an unstable person, or some silly thing like that. And that, in fact, in my home state, the people in the current government were trying to defect, or I don’t know if they defected or not, that they know that Labour won the election. This was an FTC person.
“They know Labour won the election, governorship, everything. So that is because they know they didn’t win the election. That’s why they’re trying to come to FTC.
“So I said to the interviewer, look, I don’t have to talk anymore. This man is making my case while abusing me. The point is that our democracy doesn’t have meaning.
“The purpose of serving the people has been lost. It’s about these individual games for power. And that’s what the whole idea of citizens getting together to establish rational public conversation, which is what the idea of this so-called shadow government is.
“OK, maybe we’ll talk about how it intends to operate in that sense. Maybe you can just help us, because I’m sure that, perhaps why Felix Mokwe is saying what he says, for instance, in the parliamentary system, that is as clear as crystal. In a presidential system, is it just having a strong opposition, viable opposition? How does it work? It depends on the presidential system.”