Former presidential candidate, Pat Utomi, has asserted that Nigeria will be worse than Somalia in the next few years, following the current issue of kidnappings, banditry, and terrorism.
Naija News reports that Utomi, in an interview with Punch, said the biggest challenge facing Nigeria’s political culture today is that many people find politics profitable.
He stated that people must find a way of making politics materially inconvenient and unprofitable because public resources can be abused.
He said, “The fundamental thing is that people find politics profitable. We must find a way of making politics materially inconvenient and unprofitable. If you get to power, you can abuse public resources as you like, whether you call it a security vote or giving contracts or whatever. Politics is attractive to all kinds of criminals. In societies where holding office means sacrifice, rich people look at politics and say, “I don’t want to go and waste my time there and lose my wealth.” But in Nigeria, they go into politics to make money, and because of that, they will do anything, including killing, to get there. Most of our politicians are richer than the businessmen. If we really want to stop all of this, we have to make public life materially unattractive.
“A professor of medicine should earn more than the President of Nigeria. But we all know that the personal assistant to a local government chairman earns more than a professor of Medicine in Nigeria today, which is why the system has collapsed. We have turned the incentive structure of Nigerian society upside down, and the country is not making progress because of it.
“Also, the biggest tragedy of Nigeria is that people don’t know how to speak truth to power anymore. They begin to believe their own lies. The incentive structures do not lead to progress. They only lead to a scramble for power and the sharing of the limited booty left through oil. The day that there isn’t even that small one, Nigeria will be worse than Somalia. That is my big fear. If we don’t do something dramatic now, Nigeria will be worse than Somalia in the next few years. You can see the indicators, all these kidnappings, banditry, and terrorism. I had predicted the cause of all this violence in Nigeria. It was easily predictable 15, 20 years ago. This country has gone through so many wrong things.”
Speaking on the recent gale of defection by the opposition parties to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Utomi said politicians are stylishly covering the constitutional intent that says people lose their positions after defection.
He said, “Politicians have stylishly covered the constitutional intent, which says that people cannot cross-carpet. If you cross-carpet, you lose the position. The Governor of Delta State should have automatically stopped being the governor of the state the day he announced his defection to the APC. But they have papered over the constitution. When it comes to where they can play personal games, they won’t talk about the constitution. But where things don’t even concern the constitution, like citizens getting together to ask how the government is performing, they say it is against the constitution. Adams Oshiomhole had said, “Just join us in APC and all your sins are forgiven.” That is enough for them to defect.”
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