2023: Why I Stepped Down For Peter Obi – Pat Utomi

2023: Why I Stepped Down For Peter Obi – Pat Utomi

Political-Economist and former Presidential Aspirant, Professor Pat Utomi, on Monday stepped down for Mr. Peter Obi, who went on to emerge as the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, unopposed in Asaba, Delta State.

Obi, a former governor of Anambra State and 2019 vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, left the PDP last Wednesday, joined the LP on Friday and won the ticket on Monday. In this engaging interview, Professor Utomi spoke on the state of the nation and why he stepped down for Obi among others.

See his response when asked his reasons for stepping down for Peter Obi below;

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.

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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?

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Peter is younger than I and he would have more energy to do more of these things than me.   Secondly, Peter respects my opinion. He comes to me, calls on me even when he was the governor of Anambra State. I thank God I can pay my bills, have a roof over my head, which is the most important thing about life.

Nigerian politicians are yet to discover the beauty of a simple life. Politicians are not supposed to be rich men. They are supposed to be people who humbly give up themselves to advance the common good. Ghanaian highlife musician Ben Brako, made this immortal statement: “If you see a country where their politicians are richer than their businessmen, you see a country which is about to collapse.”

Nigeria is a classic example of a country where their politicians are richer than their businessmen.  Businessmen have to go cap-in-hand to the politicians so that their businesses can continue to exist. That is a country that wants to collapse and we want to pull out our country from that brink.

For me, if Nigeria is to have any hope of progress the starting point is to stop the APC and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, from being relevant in Nigerians’ lives.

So, I felt we should pull energy to achieve the same goal rather than forcing it. I have invested over three years of my life trying to proclaim the Labour Party and make it a platform for workers on how Nigeria is governed. Peter Obi has been able to catch the attention of young people. So I choose to take on the position of the leader of the party. Like I said in Asaba, I chose to become the Group Managing Director and Peter is the Managing Director, MD, because he is younger than me, he has more energy and in my role as GMD, my job is to build the big tent to get the other parties to join us so we can redeem our country through that.

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