2023 Elections is Die or Live for Nigerians- Pat Utomi
Political-Economist and former Presidential Aspirant, Professor Pat Utomi, who on Monday stepped down for Mr. Peter Obi, who went on to emerge as the presidential candidate of the Labour Party of Nigeria, LP, unopposed in Asaba, Delta State has said that the 2023 elections is a do or die affair for Nigerians.
Professor Pat Utomi spoke on the state of the nation and why he stepped down for Obi among others.
“We have to look at the bigger picture. Our country is in a desperate situation. Nigeria is on the verge of collapse. From the point of view of finance, Nigeria is purely bankrupt. States are not paying salaries. Ostensibly, we have spent over 400 billion on so-called subsidies this year and very few people are willing to lend to Nigeria.
“The corruption in the system is frightening that every part of that so-called subsidy is corruption. We don’t have the political courage to do what should be done so we are rotten in that territory. And as a country we are economically crippled.
“When we come to security, more people are killed in Nigeria everyday than in anywhere in the world. So Nigeria is in a rolling civil war even though it pretends that it’s not in a war.
“In terms of moral order, Nigeria has collapsed. The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has been on strike for months and students are out of the universities. All the money these lecturers are asking for to fix the system is a small fraction of what one man stole.
“If you treat issues as ‘business as usual’ and make party conventions where they exchange dollars, you are essentially inviting a bloody revolution.
“In other words, the political class is inviting a bloody revolution. They are not smart at all. They can’t even see that if the things continued like this that they would be slaughtered in the streets of Nigeria.
“So, seeing all these problems and then thinking about me or my ego is madness. My entire life in politics has never been about me, it has always been about how to better the common good of all. I don’t know about others, but I am probably the only one who has put everything into politics and probably lost so much but I don’t care because history is the judge that matters. We did everything to bring the All Progressives Congress, APC, to power but the night after the election, they considered us dangerous because we can ask questions. That was the last day I heard from President Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration. No government has ever excluded me from even listening to my ideas in Nigeria’s history more than Buhari’s government. None!
“It shows how afraid they are of the truth. See what they have done to Nigeria. We fought for an anti-corruption government but ended up with the most corrupt government in Nigeria’s history.
“So, when you have that level of crisis, you need to make desperate choices. The first choice before us is how to liberate Nigeria from Nigerian politicians. The second is how to save Nigerians from the dollarisation of their politics. These are what we need to stop.
“In stopping this, you have to accept the idea of a man who said, ‘sorry I am not going to use Dollars to go to party primaries.’ So, my recognising Peter Obi was because of the statement he made. And that is a worthy statement to make.
“I have been in this struggle for nearly 50 years, next year it will be 50 years since I have been organizing students to topple the student union. I have struggled for 50 years to make Nigeria a better country and I am not complaining that I lost continually but I am more worried that despite my efforts, Nigeria is about to go under. So what is bigger than one more effort if that would help turn Nigeria around?
“Peter is younger than I and he would have more energy to do more of these things than me.”
