Former presidential candidate Professor Pat Utomi, a political economy professor and management specialist, is concerned about Nigeria’s current situation and calls for immediate action to stop the nation’s economic decline.
Utomi explained his “light japa” that he is currently in the United States on a Woodrow Wilson fellowship and won’t return until May 2025. Among other things, he discussed why President Bola Tinubu cannot be absolved of the current crisis, why politicians are powerless to save the nation, and how to shift Nigeria’s economy from consumption to production.
You mentioned that you are light Japa (moving to the United States in search of better opportunities).
I will not claim that it is Japanese. As I do on a regular basis, I went for a fellowship. Every ten years, I publish a new book and accept a fellowship elsewhere. I have performed that act numerous times.
In the United States, how many fellowships do you participate in?
Although I work as an adjunct professor at several universities, I am really on a Woodrow Wilson scholarship, so theoretically I can’t be more than one at a time.
I assumed that after taking medicine, you choose to enroll in a fellowship program halfway through.
I experienced some health issues when I was here last year. I said, “Why not?” when it was advised that I make myself available to take fellowships and other opportunities. I took this one in that manner.
How long will you be gone?
Until the end of May of the next year.
How do you feel about the country’s current situation?
It’s upsetting. It is really unsettling, particularly when some politicians are unable to think properly due to the success of politics, and they are nearly abandoning the nation in order to satisfy their egos or pursue their goals.
Policies are not well considered. In essence, these are political games meant to either acquire international legitimacy with individuals who have little regard for the Nigerian people or who are indifferent to the problems they face. Because they are not concentrating on the individuals, they are therefore committing basic errors.
You said this would occur in one of your books. Which one is it?
With the subtitle “Citizenship, State Capture, Creeping Fascism, and Criminal Hijack of Politics in Nigeria,” the book is titled “Why Not?”
You wrote this book when?
I observed a rise in fascist tendencies in the political thinking of politicians throughout the 2019 elections. If you go back and examine the rise of Bola Tinubu, you will see that it closely resembles Hitler’s rise in Germany. I warned against creeping fascism for that reason.
Go back and examine state capture. I spent years serving on the boards of several South African businesses. After the Guptas and their actions with Zuma became a problem, the South Africans were determined to stop state takeover. We can’t even discuss state capture, though, given how the Eko Atlantic folks, the Chagouris, and a number of other people have already been captured. I foresaw this coming, and it has now surpassed capture.
The political system in Nigeria is currently a wholly illegal industry. The electoral process is not trusted by the public. The judiciary has been taken over. Nigerians feel enslaved by the capture of institutions such as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), police, and military, and their only options are to either rebel violently or follow Bangladesh’s or Sri Lanka’s example. We are in a finished state unless the political elite wakes up, looks at their nation, and retraces their course.
President Tinubu’s supporters said that he has just been in power for less than two years and that he is not to blame for all of the issues they are pointing to him for. What do you think of that?
I don’t care who caused it or didn’t. I can openly state that I left Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in part because I told him in 2019 that President Buhari was taking us to a dangerous place and that we should speak up and act as his so-called party members. However, he was more interested in his own interests than in the welfare of Nigerians.
He remained silent during Buhari’s eight years of starvation. Therefore, I cannot absolve anyone; they all saw it coming and made it worse, and the policies they were implementing so rashly and carelessly made the situation worse.
Some blame President Tinubu’s elimination of fuel subsidies and currency floating for the current difficulties. Do you concur?
I wrote an essay titled “The Danger of Stupid Idiots,” which was published a few weeks ago, because of the way many have framed Nigerian politics as being between us and them, or “we versus them.”
I just discussed the definitions of stupidity given by philosophers, economic historians, and Greeks. People will say things like “I’m for this man, you’re against this man,” and people will cease thinking because of the nation’s widespread culture of stupid morons.
Allow me to discuss the gasoline subsidies. Since Nigeria’s subsidies are primarily intended to support the elite, I have always opposed quaso subsidies, or subsidies that promote consumption and support the elite. The typical person is not significantly impacted, but it does support the careless consumption habits of a select few.
Focus on subsidizing output if you plan to eliminate subsidies, as we do globally. How might the availability of that fuel price be used to encourage production? Subsidy policies, however, do not encourage production, so if you simply declare that you are eliminating subsidies without considering their effects, you will only make the situation worse.
We require an intellectual class that is local and would examine ways to shift Nigeria from consumption to production.
How much time do you think we’ll need to heal?
They might do worse; I’m not sure what they’ll do next.
You also authored the book Power, Policy, Politics, and Performance.
In that book, I talked about these problems. I examined our attempts at reform, and even when Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala and his colleagues returned as Finance Minister under President Olusegun Obasanjo, one of the issues was that they were attempting to correct things from the outside by applying the Washington textbook.
Their concepts served as a useful model, but you must comprehend the underlying causes of Nigerian policy issues. Rather than teaching them, how can you help them understand that the nation’s destiny depends on them? They were therefore teasing her.
Although there was some benefit to Obasanjo’s wisdom, in general, if you speak with Yayale Ahmed and colleagues, as I did, you will discover that the civil officials were merely teasing the reforms that Ngozi attempted to implement. Therefore, we must reconsider our approach to reform and assign responsibility for the reform processes to important stakeholders who will sit down and examine them seriously.
Returning to Malaysia, when Mahathir Mohammad wanted to start the reform process in the 1970s, he came up with what was known as the New Economic Policy and basically used a statement that was basically the same as one made by Lyndon Johnson, the US president in the 1960s, to get everyone on board. He asserted that it is preferable for everyone to be inside the home urinating rather than for some individuals to be outside urinating since you won’t enjoy the smell of the house. Therefore, you will have the kind of cooperation you need to make it work if everyone is inside the house.
That level of comprehension was not acquired by our reformers. We are worse off because under Ngozi, we didn’t receive that assistance from the top brass in the civil service. They demolished our educational system, structural program, etc.
We are doing the same mistakes we have in the past, even though we are meant to be a learning system that learns from experience. Although I was unable to understand Emefiele’s decisions, it took us years to achieve stability in the foreign exchange market. All we needed to do was control our inclination to spend what we didn’t earn, particularly when we were dependent on a single source of foreign cash, and swiftly diversify the economy’s foundation to allow for the flow of income from other sources.
Emefiele compounded it to offer them more opportunity for more rent, which is where we are now. Our economy was reliant on rent rather than output.
What guidance would you provide Nigerians?
The Nigerian people must realize that their leaders are powerless to save them; they are all self-serving and have no idea what they are doing.
When Kayode Fayemi spoke during Prince Emeka Obasi’s presentation, this became more apparent to me. When Eniola Bello questioned him about why he didn’t accomplish much after becoming office, Fayemi responded that politicians couldn’t save the people in Nigeria because of the country’s current structure. The populace must rescue themselves and reclaim their nation. That is the reality of the situation. Our political elite is incompetent and too self-centered and avaricious to advance the nation; we lack a political class. Therefore, the populace must reclaim their nation.
How can the populace reclaim their nation?
It can be done in a variety of ways. You may either ensure that a fair election procedure is followed or you can chase them out like they did in Bangladesh.
People simply watch when they observe something terrible happening. No. You take control of the process and ensure that votes and elections are counted. You take them to international courts worldwide.
folks will drive these folks out if they don’t concentrate on what can make the nation function.
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