The last words of the Cancer patient Debbie Osarere Idiagbonya before her death
BURSTED: Pat Utomi Lambasts Buhari For Playing The Old Hegemony And Dividing The Country Slowly
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Professor Pat Utomi, is a well respected
political economist who played a key role in creating the All
Progressives Congress (APC) and bringing the Buhari government to power.
His his recent interview, he expressed concern with the turn of events
in the country, especially since President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn
into office. He explained the process for “change” and described it as
“chaotic” but lamented the lack of proper leadership in Nigeria and in
Africa. He observed that Nigeria was more divided today than it was two
years ago and blamed it on poor leadership. Read excepts from the
interview below…
What do you make of the state of affairs in the country at the moment, is Nigeria moving in the right direction?
I am not sure that right or wrong
direction is the appropriate word to use. The process of change is not a
straight line graph. It is chaotic , it is not all that straight.
Obviously, it is understandable that
Nigerians are disappointed with the way some things are going. I think
it is something that helps us to reflect on how we guide and guard
change and how we understand the process. To be quite frank with you, my
understanding of the change process that will bring lasting solutions
to our problems, it has to be very principles based. It has to be
methodic. It has to look at the institution that will make things
happen effectively rather than people, Nigerians looking for a messiah. The messiah complex is a very dangerous one.
You know Barack Obama on his first visit
to Africa, the very first speech he made in Ghana, he repeated the
point I made the day before in Lagos that what Africa needs is strong
institutions, not strong men. But very often we turn around looking for
strong men. Strong men are traditionally disruptive of progress in the
sense that even when they mange to get some progress to take place,
because they did it as strong men, the next strong man would want to put
his imprimatur on progress. This may mean discounting what the strong
man before him have put in place. That is why we have weak
institutions. We need to progress with strong institutions.
I had a small debate on the platform on
October 1 last year with my friend, Bishop Hassan Kukah. He was saying
that strong men can help bring about strong institution.
I was making the point that it is not
whether we need good leaders. We need good leaders. Strong leaders
doesn’t take away from strong institutions. When you don’t
institutionalise, you have a problem.
Our experience is that the trouble with
Nigeria, clearly is leadership. Nigeria is still not being led rightly.
For me personally, 2015 was a huge disappointment. This is because what
I had hoped for, what I expected that it was a classic opportunity to
lead Nigeria, to bring everybody into a boat, saying this is the
direction we are travelling. And with every body’s energy in Nigeria we
will move towards that.
Was it not what happened?
I don’t think so. I think Nigeria today
is actually more divided than it was two years ago. The spirit of
Nigeria is much challenged today. That is simply failure of leadership.
But Nigeria came out and align with the opposition and for the first time, an incumbent was removed…
That was why I said it was a classic
opportunity for good leaders to bring everybody into the house. But that
did not happen. What happened was the old hegemony game started. People
cornering something, excluding that person, pushing that person and
they just couldn’t get it together. So everybody was urinating into the
house and the house is smelling. But if everybody was inside the house,
urinating outside, we would be erecting an edifice going forward. It
was purely a case of leadership failure.
Would you blame maybe the
opposition leaders for the failure you talked about. Was that simply a
case of the opposition only being interested in kicking out Jonathan
without first charting the direction and path that should be travelled?
Well it is not a matter of blaming
people. People cannot give what they don’t have. If people understood
leadership, understood their responsibilities they will behave
differently and the outcome will be different. For example, the great
leaders of this world when the moment of history comes, they know
yesterday, but they forget about yesterday and focus on tomorrow. They
know who was their enemy in the last fight. But what matters now is not
who insulted you yesterday or who is your best friend. What matters is
our country , where it must go. So you bring friend, enemy, everybody
who can to move in one direction. I don’t think the skills were
available to those who took power in Nigeria.
You were part of the whole
thing. You played a role. At the time you and other key individuals were
mobilising people, mobilising resource, did you also come up with
advice on how things could be done?
Again, that is why change is not a
straight line graph. You have goals. People buy into certain goals. One
important goal for me and for a lot of people was for Nigeria to
establish that power can change hands from incumbents. That goal itself
was a very very important goal. And achieving it was huge. But
sometimes, when you achieve one goal, it might be possible that you miss
another critical goal.
I will give you a classic example. I was involved
in a big mission to push out the military from power in Nigeria. we
founded all kinds of groups, including the one we call the concerned
professionals. And we battled the military. When the military decided to
surrender in 1998, we declared victory. Some amongst us say we must now
take power and show Nigeria what we have been talking about, among
them, a fellow called Waziri Mohammed, who died in the Belleview crash.
And some in the group said we are professionals, we must go back to our
businesses. They argued that we did a citizen duty of saving our
country. I have to admit that I was one of those who took that point of
view. Let the politicians now go on and do what they know how to do.
But what we did not anticipate is that the real politicians, the traditional people who followed Awolowo, who
followed Okpara, Sardauna, Zik, people who knew that politics was about
service, sacrificial giving of self for the greater good of the
community; many of those people did not trust the military from their
experience. So they did not come forward. The bad men of the soldiers,
their contractors became the new politicians and Nigeria has not
recovered from it. By the time we realised our error, it was four years
into the Obasanjo administration. That was how that idea to be involved
came. That was how I ran for office, it wasn’t because of anything. That
realisation: “Oh my God. We made a mistake”.
So, in the same way in 2015, the goal
was let us establish that power can change hands. That if you can push
out an incumbent that is not doing well, then democracy will lead to a
better government. That was the main focus, at least for some of us. But
I think there is a fundamental problem with the character of the
Nigerian state through which the agents operates. Until we can change
the character of the Nigerian state progress is going to be difficult in
Nigeria.
First and foremost, I have just been
engaging in some reflection. In the last couple of months, I have come
to the frightening conclusion that government does more to prevent
progress than to advance progress in Nigeria. The evidence is just
there and around me. Government does more to retard Nigeria than to move
it forward.
Why , how ?
I say so because of the nature of the
people, who play in the so called political arena. There are two, three
or four strands you can find. There are people who want power for self
aggrandisement. People who think they can make money, enjoy the sound of
siren or whatever pecuniary thing they see in power. There are people
who want power to revenge on their enemies. Then there is a certain kind
of elite, you call them AGIP (Any Government in Power).
They just want the room to make their money. They don’t want to be disturbed by power. They just want to be accommodated.
There is a huge number of people who just feel powerless, what can we do? Let’s just survive.
Very critical for progress is a group of
people who say look there is a certain tomorrow that we see for our
children and for our children’s children. We are willing to sacrifice
whatever it takes. Usually, they are people who have found success in
other things. They have probably been successful as academics,
successful as businessmen or whatsoever.
These are the legacy hunters. They have
the courage of conviction to be able to lose whatever it is- access to
power, access to money so that ultimately the society will be different.
That group is still too small in Nigeria. That is really the trouble
with Nigeria. Those who dominate are those who want power for their
aggrandizement and those who want power to revenge on their enemy.
So, where does the current administration fit into ?
There is a mix. There is a mix of all of
it . There isn’t a strong enough vision of tomorrow and selfless giving
of one’s self for the purpose of getting Nigeria to that new height.
Read the full interview at The Sun
BURSTED: Pat Utomi Lambasts Buhari For Playing The Old Hegemony And Dividing The Country Slowly
789
11
0
0
801
0
Professor Pat Utomi, is a well respected
political economist who played a key role in creating the All
Progressives Congress (APC) and bringing the Buhari government to power.
His his recent interview, he expressed concern with the turn of events
in the country, especially since President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn
into office. He explained the process for “change” and described it as
“chaotic” but lamented the lack of proper leadership in Nigeria and in
Africa. He observed that Nigeria was more divided today than it was two
years ago and blamed it on poor leadership. Read excepts from the
interview below…
What do you make of the state of affairs in the country at the moment, is Nigeria moving in the right direction?
I am not sure that right or wrong
direction is the appropriate word to use. The process of change is not a
straight line graph. It is chaotic , it is not all that straight.
Obviously, it is understandable that
Nigerians are disappointed with the way some things are going. I think
it is something that helps us to reflect on how we guide and guard
change and how we understand the process. To be quite frank with you, my
understanding of the change process that will bring lasting solutions
to our problems, it has to be very principles based. It has to be
methodic. It has to look at the institution that will make things
happen effectively rather than people, Nigerians looking for a messiah. The messiah complex is a very dangerous one.
You know Barack Obama on his first visit
to Africa, the very first speech he made in Ghana, he repeated the
point I made the day before in Lagos that what Africa needs is strong
institutions, not strong men. But very often we turn around looking for
strong men. Strong men are traditionally disruptive of progress in the
sense that even when they mange to get some progress to take place,
because they did it as strong men, the next strong man would want to put
his imprimatur on progress. This may mean discounting what the strong
man before him have put in place. That is why we have weak
institutions. We need to progress with strong institutions.
I had a small debate on the platform on
October 1 last year with my friend, Bishop Hassan Kukah. He was saying
that strong men can help bring about strong institution.
I was making the point that it is not
whether we need good leaders. We need good leaders. Strong leaders
doesn’t take away from strong institutions. When you don’t
institutionalise, you have a problem.
Our experience is that the trouble with
Nigeria, clearly is leadership. Nigeria is still not being led rightly.
For me personally, 2015 was a huge disappointment. This is because what
I had hoped for, what I expected that it was a classic opportunity to
lead Nigeria, to bring everybody into a boat, saying this is the
direction we are travelling. And with every body’s energy in Nigeria we
will move towards that.
Was it not what happened?
I don’t think so. I think Nigeria today
is actually more divided than it was two years ago. The spirit of
Nigeria is much challenged today. That is simply failure of leadership.
But Nigeria came out and align with the opposition and for the first time, an incumbent was removed…
That was why I said it was a classic
opportunity for good leaders to bring everybody into the house. But that
did not happen. What happened was the old hegemony game started. People
cornering something, excluding that person, pushing that person and
they just couldn’t get it together. So everybody was urinating into the
house and the house is smelling. But if everybody was inside the house,
urinating outside, we would be erecting an edifice going forward. It
was purely a case of leadership failure.
Would you blame maybe the
opposition leaders for the failure you talked about. Was that simply a
case of the opposition only being interested in kicking out Jonathan
without first charting the direction and path that should be travelled?
Well it is not a matter of blaming
people. People cannot give what they don’t have. If people understood
leadership, understood their responsibilities they will behave
differently and the outcome will be different. For example, the great
leaders of this world when the moment of history comes, they know
yesterday, but they forget about yesterday and focus on tomorrow. They
know who was their enemy in the last fight. But what matters now is not
who insulted you yesterday or who is your best friend. What matters is
our country , where it must go. So you bring friend, enemy, everybody
who can to move in one direction. I don’t think the skills were
available to those who took power in Nigeria.
You were part of the whole
thing. You played a role. At the time you and other key individuals were
mobilising people, mobilising resource, did you also come up with
advice on how things could be done?
Again, that is why change is not a
straight line graph. You have goals. People buy into certain goals. One
important goal for me and for a lot of people was for Nigeria to
establish that power can change hands from incumbents. That goal itself
was a very very important goal. And achieving it was huge. But
sometimes, when you achieve one goal, it might be possible that you miss
another critical goal.
I will give you a classic example. I was involved
in a big mission to push out the military from power in Nigeria. we
founded all kinds of groups, including the one we call the concerned
professionals. And we battled the military. When the military decided to
surrender in 1998, we declared victory. Some amongst us say we must now
take power and show Nigeria what we have been talking about, among
them, a fellow called Waziri Mohammed, who died in the Belleview crash.
And some in the group said we are professionals, we must go back to our
businesses. They argued that we did a citizen duty of saving our
country. I have to admit that I was one of those who took that point of
view. Let the politicians now go on and do what they know how to do.
But what we did not anticipate is that the real politicians, the traditional people who followed Awolowo, who
followed Okpara, Sardauna, Zik, people who knew that politics was about
service, sacrificial giving of self for the greater good of the
community; many of those people did not trust the military from their
experience. So they did not come forward. The bad men of the soldiers,
their contractors became the new politicians and Nigeria has not
recovered from it. By the time we realised our error, it was four years
into the Obasanjo administration. That was how that idea to be involved
came. That was how I ran for office, it wasn’t because of anything. That
realisation: “Oh my God. We made a mistake”.
So, in the same way in 2015, the goal
was let us establish that power can change hands. That if you can push
out an incumbent that is not doing well, then democracy will lead to a
better government. That was the main focus, at least for some of us. But
I think there is a fundamental problem with the character of the
Nigerian state through which the agents operates. Until we can change
the character of the Nigerian state progress is going to be difficult in
Nigeria.
First and foremost, I have just been
engaging in some reflection. In the last couple of months, I have come
to the frightening conclusion that government does more to prevent
progress than to advance progress in Nigeria. The evidence is just
there and around me. Government does more to retard Nigeria than to move
it forward.
Why , how ?
I say so because of the nature of the
people, who play in the so called political arena. There are two, three
or four strands you can find. There are people who want power for self
aggrandisement. People who think they can make money, enjoy the sound of
siren or whatever pecuniary thing they see in power. There are people
who want power to revenge on their enemies. Then there is a certain kind
of elite, you call them AGIP (Any Government in Power).
They just want the room to make their money. They don’t want to be disturbed by power. They just want to be accommodated.
There is a huge number of people who just feel powerless, what can we do? Let’s just survive.
Very critical for progress is a group of
people who say look there is a certain tomorrow that we see for our
children and for our children’s children. We are willing to sacrifice
whatever it takes. Usually, they are people who have found success in
other things. They have probably been successful as academics,
successful as businessmen or whatsoever.
These are the legacy hunters. They have
the courage of conviction to be able to lose whatever it is- access to
power, access to money so that ultimately the society will be different.
That group is still too small in Nigeria. That is really the trouble
with Nigeria. Those who dominate are those who want power for their
aggrandizement and those who want power to revenge on their enemy.
So, where does the current administration fit into ?
There is a mix. There is a mix of all of
it . There isn’t a strong enough vision of tomorrow and selfless giving
of one’s self for the purpose of getting Nigeria to that new height.
Read the full interview at The Sun
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