Alleged ministerial nominee of President Muhammadu Buhari, Prof. Pat Utomi, is a renown economist and public affairs commentator. Utomi served as Special Adviser in the Second Republic government of President Shehu Shagari. He recently marked his 30th wedding anniversary in Lagos. In this interview at the low-key event, Utomi speaks on some national issues and how the change movement, brought about by the All Progressives Congress APC, came into being.
Ministerial nomination
I am reading it as you have read it in the papers. My position is that your citizenship has its obligations and duties. Through the years, I have been a very passionate voice for change in the country. And it is purely based on principles, patriotic sense of where the country should be heading to. Over the years, I have also had some invitation ro serve in public lives.
I served in government some long time ago. I was very young at that time. I am good. I could pick up something quickly and store them. And one of the decisions I made from that brief excursion into public life was that I should never allow myself to be in public life if I don’t have a sense that there will be enough of a critical mass to make the kind of difference that I believe in. Because of that, on a number of occasions, when I have been either invited or whatever, I have been very careful and honest with those who invited me to say that‘ I am not in a rush to go into government’.
And that I can go into government only when I have certain sense for the nature of that government and my role in it and the clarity of the goal that government would be pursuing. This has earned me pressure of different kinds from friends who think I am not acting normal to those who appreciate the principle that I have adopted in the business of considering public life.
Today, I am satisfied that Nigerians, as a people, have the sense that the time for change has come. That is the most gratifying part for me. Many think that I represent that whole thing and think that I should work in that kind of environment.
But, honestly, it doesn’t make any difference to me inside or outside; I will support anything that will move the country forward in the direction of change. I take same attitude to the business of positioning government. It doesn’t make any difference to me if I am serving outside or within, I will do what i have to do or need to do.
100 days in office
I watched all the 100 days business; promises made and not made. It is irrelevant now whether promises were made or not. The important things are that there is enough to say that we have moved significantly from where we were before now. Anyone who has not observed that is being insincere.
Some people are not feeling comfortable with power supply because it is too available. Now, when you call the DISCOs, they respond. And the question from many now is, ‘is this Nigeria?’ Improving power supply is enough for any administration to focus on, because entrepreneurship will bloom. To have made the kind of leap in supply is an achievement.
But we can go further than that, looking at the increasing sense of impunity in this country. At a time, many believed nothing could be done to correct the impunity. But after this administration decided to right the wrong, we could all see the debate it generated. And that showed that something was wrong in the country.
I remember in 2000 when I visited my home town, a commissioner accosted me and said people were complaining about my stand against corruption. And he said that there were speculations that I would be made the finance minister. He added that they (some politicians) said that I would block the leakages in government. The story was included in my autobiography.
Then I was seen as the enemy but, today, everyone is talking about corruption. In the last three months, one can see that the new governor in Lagos does not go around blowing siren. You can also see that Nigerians are beginning to questions governors who bought jets. This is good. The most important thing is to let one’s mind be in motion; the rest will follow.
I know for a fact that one of the passionate programmes that we discussed is the programme that will allow an ordinary man to have one meal a day. I can say that there is an ongoing effort to achieve that. I have seen the team assembled. We all are witnesses to the dramatic changes in the NNPC. The refineries are coming back. No one needs to be apologetic about whether promises were made or not.
There is a movement in a direction. Enough has been done that we can begin to build on.
Declaration of assets by government officials
Personally, I have always favoured declaration of assets. I do not think I am adding anything new to the argument. If one has money, he should not be ashamed of it. It is as if people are afraid there may be accusation on why are they rich. The issue of declaration is not if you have money but how one made such money. If you ask me, I will show you how I earned every naira I own today. I should be ashamed that I have money? As an individual, I have not been referred to as that rich man but no one has called me a poor man.
This is because I am one of the biggest developers of entrepreneurs in this country. Considering the number of the entrepreneurs I have helped, I should be a billionaire in dollars. I would have created companies that should be making billions of dollars today with people. And that was why I wrote a book titled, “Business Angel as a Missionary.” I wrote that book because Senator Ben Murray-Bruce came into my house in Ikoyi few days after moving in. And he said that I had done one thing for myself for a change. He said I could name all the people I had made multi-millionaires and `you still live modestly; why do you hate money’.
I replied that I didn’t hate money. And he replied that considering the number of people I have made, I should be so wealthy. But what I told him was that he should tell me where all the wealthiest men in this country have visited that I haven’t done so and that “I am happy the way I am”.
He later urged me to write a book on the companies that I have helped to build. So, considering my size and what I have done, I should not be embarrassed with what I have done. I think what people are scared of is the asset of the president, believing that if they have more than that, they could be labelled as corrupt officials. Everyone should declare his assets. They should be able to show us where they made wealth. But if they cannot show it to the public, then such persons are thieves. They should come out boldly.
Though it is a personal thing; some may come out, others may not because they don’t want people to know their worth or for security reasons. If that is their fear (security), one needs to respect it. And one can access the information using the Freedom of Information Act. One can choose to respect their will not to be exposed if there is a clear statement of how their money was made. But if there is no clear statement, then the journalist can use the tool at his disposal to pursue their explanation.
Boko Haram
I am not a security expert. I cannot say we are winning the war or not. All I can say is that I see purpose and I hope that the purpose delivers the desired outcome.
You were absent in politics for some time. Why?
I didn’t dump politics. I have been around. There are different kinds of politicians. There are some who live off politics and there are others who do not. I don’t live off politics. I earn an income working very hard at few things that I have been giving grace and talent from God to work at. Politics will always be an aspect where I take time out to sacrifice myself to advance the common good where there is a match between my talent and of other players that can help make that contribution.
In the early days, I actually thought there was a division of labour of sort. And that I should probably focus my energy in the realm of social enterprise and activism. I was speaking at an event organised by New Generation Foundation where Chief Phillip Asiodu was the Chairman. They asked me to be the Keynote Speaker and, that evening, he made a comment before we started.
I remember that when I came back after my Ph.D in 1982, a group of us, Dr. Femi Aribisala, Henry Idowu, Olisa Agbakoba, Jimmy Peters, among others, were fresh Ph.D holders from the best universities around the world and we had come back to the country. And we used to get together at the NIIA, Kofo Abayomi, Victoria Island. Then, we established a journal called Spectrum.
We will go to people like Chief Philip Asiodu and interview them and then write on the challenges confronting the nation. Of the group of about 20-something talented minds, only three of us still live in Nigeria. One after the other, others left. Some went to Oxford University, others to University of Pennsylvania, New York. A young lady was referring to the state of education in the early 60s when she said the quality of education in the country was at par with the best countries in the world.
And I said it was hard to gain admission into the University of Ibadan at that time than Harvard. The young lady became so agitated that, considering the standard of education at that time, why were the beneficiaries of that education made mess of the country? And I responded that if she could check, she would discover that most of the beneficiaries of that quality education have never provided leadership in Nigeria.
And the reason was that a good percent of them left the shores of this country in frustration in the 80s. And that was why I wrote a piece, ‘The generation that left town.” Due to that unfortunate evolution, my view of my role increased to playing that type of social enterprise role; civil societies. We need civil societies to serve as check and balances on government. I focused on playing that role.
‘Concerned Professionals’
And, in 1993, after the June 12 election was annulled, I reactivated that role, writing a piece published in one of the famous newspapers, saying “we must say never again.” That piece led to the establishment of ‘Concerned Professionals.’ It was arguably one of the stout movements of resistant against military regime. As a result of that write up, we played a very important role in bringing military regime to an end in the country.
When military rule ended, there was a debate among us as to which direction to go. There was this argument as to whether we should go into politics and try to effect the change we had been preaching or we should go back to our role as professionals.
One of those that moved passionately that we transform into a political party was the late Waziri Muhammed who, unfortunately, died in the Bellview plane crash. I believed that we had achieved the aim of chasing the Army out of office and politicians should come in and manage the country.
Unfortunately, too, we misjudged the situation. We didn’t realize that the real politicians were not too sure that the military was ready to go. So many of them stayed back to watch. And after the military left, contractors who worked with the military became the new politicians. And some soldiers who removed their uniforms moved into the political space and seized it. And Nigeria went into serious trouble and this happened at a time when the price of fuel skyrocketed.
Under Sani Abacha’s regime, the price of world oil reduced to about $10 per barrel. After the country came back into civil rule, the price began to appreciate. These fellows captured the political space and converted public treasure into private use.
They used the money they made to erect barriers around themselves in the political space and they were basically a group of people who saw the political arena as an arena of self-enrichment and aggrandisement. And those who could oppose them were unable to gain access because these politicians had erected barriers everywhere. For most of that season, President Muhammadu Buhari was electable.
But we got to a point last year when Nigerians decided that enough was enough. And the momentum started. I used to make a statement prior to that election that opposition parties rarely win election because the incumbent doesn’t lose. And the country got to a point when it became obvious that the candidate who had contested elections and could not win became the ideal candidate. And that was how we get to where we are.
In 2002, it had become clear that we made a mistake. When Waziri and some of our colleagues decided to go into politics, myself and others decided to maintain our status quo. I remember one evening, standing in front of my office at Idowu Taylor Street, VI with a former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, and three others, Duke said he was going back to organize his state. If we all had done what Duke did, maybe Nigeria wouldn’t be the same today. But we pulled back and these other characters moved in.
And, by 2003, it was clear to me that we needed to do something. We began to debate on how to go about our decision to move into politics with those who probably had the political wing of the ‘Concerned Professionals’. And we called it the Restoration Group. And discussion then suggested that the least we could do was to set agenda for the election. As it was at that time, there were no issues discussed. Politics in the country was about merchants of fortunes.
It was decided in the group that I should run for office. The clear goal of my vying for office in 2007 was to set an agenda; we believed there should be a discussion of where we wanted to be in the nearest future as a country. The second goal was that because the country was so fractured in 2007, we were quite sure that no one will win a proper election. In 2007, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had probably taken the North-East, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate had taken the North-West, maybe we will take the youth and the intellectual votes as the Alliance for Democracy, AD, will probably take over the South-West.
As it was clear that no one could win the election out rightly, we believed that, in that state of flux, politicians will have to get together to discuss how to resolve the fracture and we would go into a coalition that will then produce the scenario in which it will bring us into the arrangement. That was our strategy.
But the PDP deliberately chose to prevent the election from taking place in 2007. There was no election in that year. After the election, I said I was not going to run until we could create a two party arrangement. I concentrated my energy from 2007 to 2011 into trying to build a virile opposition.
And Chief Anthony Enahoro became the rallying point for a progressive opposition. I remember that he called me one Saturday and I went to see him in his house in Ikeja. And we discussed about the movement called the Social Democratic Mega Movement, SDMM. It was expected to bring together all progressives in the opposition in the country. I said to him that was the only thing I was committed to at that time and not public office.
Broke
I tried to design a shadow cabinet but I discovered that the issue of internal envy could be a problem within the opposition. Then, in 2011, as the election came by, I was so broke to think of election. Due to that, I had no plans to vie for election until the system changed and our party came together to develop resources and members contributed funds. After that, we discussed on who could provide the kind of leadership that we needed. As the elections approached, we began to see different movements.
Suddenly there was a new movement called the National Democratic Initiative, NDI. This party was led by northern politicians including President Muhammadu Buhari, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Chief Olu Falae and I was invited to become a co-convener. And the argument presented to us was that northerners may see us as being incorporated into the SDMM which was a southern movement. But if we had this one and we all came together, everything will fall in line with what we aimed to achieve.
One day I returned from a foreign trip and Chief Olu Falae called me. He said it was appropriate that as the face of the party, I should be the Chairman. While I was out of the country, they had elected me the Chairman of the party. I accepted. And that was why I became the Chairman of the SDMM.
Wale Okuniyi, the CPC governorship candidate in Ogun State, said the best strategy was to allow the respective parties in the NDI to produce their presidential candidates. Then all the candidates will come together and one of them will be chosen to vie for the election. And we will all support that person. He said that SDMM had decided that I be the party’s presidential candidate in 2011 and my reply was that I didn’t have money. He said I should not worry.
And at one of the meetings of the NDI held before the polls, we had President Buhari, Mr. Fola Adeola, Nuhu Ribadu, Shekarau, Tony Momoh, Oyegun in attendance. But at the last minute, the thing flopped. And I decided that there was no need contesting if we could not get a viable opposition.
After that election, I went to see the former Lagos State governor (Tinubu) who was with us in the NDI process because we had meetings at the Lagos House and the governor’s lodge in Ikeja. I met with him and I said that if we were going to get a formidable opposition, he needed to lead. He laughed but several months later he called me to say we should discuss the issue with President Buhari. I told him that I was exhausted because I knew how many times I had gone to Kaduna and other places. I was not interested in leading but willing to follow. And I asked him to go and if he achieves it, I will follow him.
He later called me to say Buhari accepted the offer and that was how we are where we are today.
