Nigerian Tribune:
Utomi laments mediocrity among Nigeria’s
political class
FOLLOWING an attempt by the police, last week, to force
the speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu
Tambuwal out of the National Assembly (NASS), which
plunged the complex into chaos, founder of Centre for
Values in Leadership, Professor Pat Utomi has expressed
concern that the political class in Nigeria have not
educated themselves to understand what they owe the
future of the nation.
In his words: “What gets to me more is how our political
class cannot educate themselves to understand what they
owe the future, and that institutions are the key to that
future.”
According to him, at the heart of the building of
institutions was the rule of law violated so shamelessly,
not only at NASS but also in Ekiti State, Rivers State and
other states where there was abuse of elections and Delta
State inclusive.
He said these are creating the impression that politics is
not about ideas or service but the domain of the crooked
and the self-obsessed.
In a note titled: “The ultimate reign of impunity and the
journey to anarchy,” Utomi expressed hope that lessons
be learnt from British Historian, Niall Fergusons of the
1787 constitution of the United States of America (USA), as
one of the most profound efforts at institution building in
human history.
Those institutions he added, have helped America
become one of the most prosperous nations ever
created; instead of recent experience which show our
political class in some of the most de-institutionalising
practices, known in modern nation states.
“The current rape of our institutions may eventually be
history’s biggest source of indictment for the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP),” he regretted.
Utomi also frowned at the panic in economic
management because of an anticipated and long
expected fall of oil prices. According to him, almost all
who have been to Abuja and interacted with leading
policy makers speak of panic in the corridors of power on
matters of the oil price decline and the failure of policy to
be elastic enough to absorb minor shocks.
“I have been puzzled by the fact that all the scare has
been about crude oil prices coming down not even to the
so called budget benchmark price. Yet already many
states are unable to pay monthly wages when due. This
has to be evidence of widespread abuse of the integrity of
budgeting and pointer to the massive corruption
evidently at play in the deployment of resources for
budget goals,” Utomi said.