We should all run for president (II)
I was spurred to write this article after I read Professor Pat Utomi’s statement about why he is running for Governor in Delta State – after he had run for president of Nigeria years ago. I recall meeting Prof at the lobby of the hotel in Tinapa in 2009 and pleading with him to run […]
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was spurred to write this article after I read Professor Pat Utomi’s statement about why he is running for Governor in Delta State – after he had run for president of Nigeria years ago. I recall meeting Prof at the lobby of the hotel in Tinapa in 2009 and pleading with him to run for president. He later did – not on the basis of my plea certainly. I want to interrogate whether guys like him are making the right decisions. I want to pre-empt that if he wins he shall soon be complaining about how Okowa stole all the money and borrowed till eternity and there was little he could do – except borrow some more so that his successor will complain even more. 100% of our recent governors have done this exactly. As a matter of fact, the model we have now can hardly make any state thrive. Even the much-revered Lagos State is sitting on unsustainable debts for which there aren’t commensurate projects. Nigeria needs a new vision, right from the top. We need a new model of governance that can only be explained and driven by a new leader. I would have urged Utomi to keep trying to be president, and offering his ideas. For sure only one person can be president at a time, but I understand the value of adding our ideas and visions to the pot and pursuing such ideas from our different perches, so that this country could truly move forward. I believe we should all run for president. I had written before that Nigeria actually needs a million leaders. We need more people to get involved in rescuing this nation. We may be up to 100 jostling to be president right now in this period of emergency. As unprecedented as that is, we aren’t enough.
These are the statements from Pat Utomi, which caught my eyes, and for which I know he is on a wrong move – even if he wins;
“If you have a conscience and you watch a people live a fate worse than death, then your spirit must verge on being broken.. complaints from various quarters that family members continue to die untimely due to accidents triggered by the hardly motorable state of Delta roads, leaves me with a feeling of despondence… The infrastructure challenges in Delta State dehumanises our people.… In addition, our environment has become so deplorable as to seem like a dust bin…my conscience kills me some more with the death from avoidable causes, of every man, woman or child, due partly to poor healthcare in the State… Why is Delta State the domain of poverty in spite of such incredible endowments, human and material resources? …Delta has lost its glory and its dignity, and it is now literally on its knees begging to be rescued from the rot of many years, which is the result of poor governance, leadership failure and the incompetence of successive PDP administrations that turned their backs on our people. Delta State receives very huge allocations from the federation account, yet extreme poverty exists in the State… What is more, Delta State is already hugely indebted, thus mortgaging its future generations. And the State acts as though it is unaware of our level of indebtedness. Worse still, the State’s infrastructure is evidently in shambles… The State has also become barren of corporate life. Most companies have moved away from Delta…. Furthermore, the education sector faces numerous challenges… We have also lost our top position in sports and youth development.
This continuing decay must stop. Nothing stops Delta from becoming a network of Industrial Parks linked by world-class physical and social infrastructure… With our current population growth rate, not creating job opportunities for our youth could mean that we would reap a whirlwind of anarchy… We are being given a new opportunity by our democratic process to have a new management that can transform Delta and bring happy days back to all; rich and poor, male and female, urban and rural; young and old. We must seize this opportunity.
We all will be judged surely. We will be judged by our children. We will be judged by history. And ultimately, we will be judged by God…Anybody who remembers judgment and is not moved to do something positive about our situation in Delta State should probably never have been born…”
I have painstakingly extracted very important aspects of Utomi’s speech. There is not a word there that is not relevant to Nigeria as a whole. That is one. Secondly, I don’t see how he can achieve a single one of his dreams for Delta with the current governance and constitutional arrangement. Thirdly, there is no way you can turn Delta State into el Dorado within Nigeria except you fix the whole stinking shebang! It has never happened before that one state will leap into the 22nd Century while the rest remain in the Dark Ages where we all are presently. And given how tough it is to get a profound change going constitutionally, I believe more effort is needed at the executive level to get a honest debate along, which will culminate in salutary amendments and be the precursor of the massive restructuring that the people now validly demand.
We all should be running for the presidency. We need serious creative and positive disruption at that level. Nothing less will do, and the time is now. Pat Utomi should try again for President. That’s my take.