From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye
Professor of political economy and management expert, Pat Utomi,has given reasons why he is in support of protests by Nigerians to demand for their stolen mandate.
Speaking on Arise News on Sunday, he expressed regrets that same people who matched with him against the annulment of the June 12 election in 1993, are today championing ethnicity.
You were a major player on the platform of Labour Party and the leading supporter of the presidential candidate of that party. Elections are now over but there are persons raising questions about the legitimacy of the process and also about the performance of INEC and now there is this controversy of interim national government and the way forward for Nigeria. Against this background, what is the way forward?
Thank you. It will be the equivalence of burying your head in the sand to pretend what I don’t have, to use the words of Datti Baba Ahmed, a constitutional crisis in Nigeria. I approach it from even a deeper point and I think you know this that my entire engagement with political life is based on what I like to call The Meta narrative. What is it all about beyond you win election, you take power, the transactions that go with it. Why do we have a political process, what is it supposed to bring about?
Nigeria, unfortunately has underperformed as a country. Terribly underperformed and people don’t ask the question, why is it so? Given the talents available in Nigeria, given that we live in an age that is called the aristocracy of talent, why does Nigeria perform so badly? Now one of the reasons Nigeria performs so badly, the poverty capital of the world and all of those things that goes with it is the challenge of legitimacy for those who govern Nigeria. Every four years has now become, stop, what’s going on here, are these the right people and we run into this crisis. Unfortunately, for us, we are at it again.
Let me say that, you know, in order to make the most important point about elections, it is that they confer legitimacy on those who come of the process. Simeon Marti in one of the most important socio-political writings, The First New Nation, discusses this subject of legitimacy in such a wonderful way. Legitimacy is conferred first by election and it’s earned every day by government when they are in office and legitimacy can wane and you get into the politics of power erosion that can lead ultimately to regime failure. This makes elections in a democracy so important that we must do everything possible to keep any doubt away from the fact that those who emerge from the progress are truly those who have come as a result of the will of the people.
But as we know, this has not been quite the case in Nigerian history. I mean, the case of Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu saying, oh power is not served a la carte, grab it, run with it, it’s actually not original to him. The person I remember who has the original on that, is late Arthur Nzeribe. I think Arthur Nzeribe used to say on Election Day whether you even registered to be voted for or not, the most important thing is to get somebody to announce that you won the election. Then you can say to them, go to court, then you can get into office and use state resources to fight that person.
Now this has almost become the pattern with Nigerian politics that it is almost taking legitimacy away from the process. It has almost made the idea of election in Nigeria a laughing matter. People don’t think Nigeria is in a democracy and I think you need to at the brilliant thought of Reverend Father, Professor, Anthony Akinwale at the presentation of the Fayemi’s book, we are muddling up too many things and pretending Nigeria is a democracy. It is not a democracy. I know it is not. I have participated in the process, I know it is not a democracy. I have been 419ed by political parties that I was part of founding like the APC, I know that it is a completely manipulated process of people who “own the party”.
So, how do we get Nigerians to begin to take the outcome of elections seriously, very simple. We have got to find a system that is so transparent and the electronic process is surely one of the ways but not the only way because even it can be sabotaged. But I am even willing to say Nigerians should stop trying to organize elections, let’s ask the UN or somebody since we are incapable of doing that well, let’s ask some foreign body to come and organize elections. Once is transparent, I don’t think anybody will quarrel about who is emerging from that process.
But opinion is divided on the 2023 general elections in Nigeria. And INEC has declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu winner of the elections. He is now president-elect. The secretary to the government of the federation has told us nothing will stop the inauguration on May 29, regardless of the fact that the presidential election tribunal is sitting. The law, section 285 of the constitution provides for 180 days for the case to be determined by which time Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have been installed.
Members of the APC are saying the election is over; people should just move on. So, do you think that that government would have a crisis of legitimacy and how?
Absolutely. We’ve had coup d’ etats in Nigeria. Soldiers are not the only ones who carry out coup d’ etats, civilians can carry out coup d’ etats. 2023 elections could be a coup d’ etats against the Nigerian people. The fact that it’s been carried out doesn’t necessarily make it legitimate, the fact that the government has come up, you know in that regard, I have a very simple solution. Look, if we really don’t care for democracy, that’s okay, no big problem. We are soldiers who come and who have more power, pushes this one out when you gather enough power, you push out the other one. We can continue to survive under such circumstances. But if you are going to make believe, if you are going to pretend that a government people will have worry about is in place, then they will begin to go towards understanding why progress is very slow in Nigeria.
You can get the geniuses of this world to come if the people don’t believe that that government is legitimately serving their interests, the form of cooperation that they can give is such that the kind of progress we desire as a country will not take place. Sadly, we will continue to be the laughing stock of the world. And like I said, all the indicators of progress that we see, Nigeria is there at the bottom literally, with the kind of resources especially in human capital that Nigeria has been gifted with.
So, it’s not a big problem. We can let another coup d’etats take place by civilians and let it just continue, that’s fine but we will see the result down the line. I am actually more worried by some of the things that come as a result of that process. I’m worried that people have been made to hate their neigbours because some people are desperate for power. You know, I have difficulty in thinking of people as different from me because of the language they speak or the religion they preach and I think my whole life is a track record on that. But I recognize that human beings are also weak and that human beings respond not only in Nigeria but around the world to emotions.
One of the reasons I am in the United States, is to engage some colleagues who are doing work around reason, emotion and the gap between us and them. You know, some of the best work done in that area has benen led by Joshua Green at the Center for Moral Cognition in Harvard. They are looking at why the Americans respond the way they respond to Trump emotional polls and relative to reason but they have had strong institutions that have helped them from toppling over in the middle of those kinds of emotional polls.
I see unfortunately, that the need for stereotypes is easy, oh this man is Yoruba man, this man is Igbo, that man is an Hausa man, makes it deadly for politicians who want to play the game in a country like Nigeria. And I feel that something dramatic needs to be done. If we can go very quickly from a point where some of us were very excited, the youth of Nigeria are finally about to rescue Nigeria. I mean look how they are working at this movement not caring about ethnic origins, not caring about religion, not caring about… but suddenly in less than three weeks, went from the gate of Hotel Rwanda. My fear, I have written a book about this some four years ago, Nigeria is about to become a fascist state. Rising fascisim, trying to dominate others is what I fear and the whole world needs to come together to see how to avoid that.
Look, what I see developing in Nigeria is clearly the way Hitler evolved in Germany from the republic that drove it and produced a kind of fascist movement, elected the best of Germans, Christians and all of that, but suddenly found themselves in emotional hook to ethnic supremacist that eventually brought the German state to its knees.
I remember the book you are referring to, your 2020 book titled Why Not? Citizenship, State Capture, Creeping Fascism and Criminal Hijack of Politics in Nigeria. You are also on record as having recommended that Nigerians should stage protests like the orange protest in Ukraine?
Yes. I recommended that in 2007.
Well, we have a fait accompli. There is a president-elect, there is an inauguration process, there is a transition committee in place and the government is saying, look, nobody should recommend anything that will amount to a disruption of that process. So what is the way forward?
If it pretends to be a democracy, the right to protest is inalienable in a democracy, whether it is people being sworn in or anything, in a democracy, people have the right to protest if they think something is unjust. Because, if you don’t, how are institutions built? If you don’t push back on wrong, people take it for granted that they will always get away with wrong and that becomes impunity. And white policeman that puts his knees on the neck of a black man because he has a certain view of black people can get away with murder. But America mobilizes and the world with them, Black Lives Matter, why should Nigerians not say we are tired of stolen elections, this cannot continue and should be able to say it to whenever they want.
People are beginning to be afraid of their neigbours, issues of religion and maybe ethnicity in that regard. But part of the narrative in Nigeria today is that there are no saints and your candidate, Mr. Peter Obi used politics of religion during elections…
I am not talking about politics of religion or politics of this, I am talking about inspiring hate and hurt of your Neigbour.
No. The argument was that religion was used to promote hatred and divide people and that your candidate was guilty…
Yeah! Hatred deliberately promoted; that’s a different thing from playing a game or organizing around religion if you will. It is completely a different thing.
Well, isn’t the end result the same?
Not necessarily. We can choose to organize ourselves based on our… I mean Northern Ireland have been forever separated by religion and people accepted the reality that this is it. But the problem was not that religion separated them; it was that hatred of Neigbour by a different religion was preached. Look, I lived in Lagos during the civil war, I was in high school and we worked around as young people in Surulere, my class, area and friends were from everywhere; 80 percent of them were Yoruba. When I went to the University of Nigeria to start university in 1973, I led protest that led people to say, this Yoruba boy. My circle of friends in 1973 in UNN included, Olu Ayeni of Tantalizer, Ogidan of The Guardian for long years, Idiat Adesanya, she is retired now. Even the NAFDAC DG, Kehinde Olugbono, who is a professor at Yale today, these were my closet friends. I never thought of myself as different. In 1993, June 12, you will recall the role that I played, I didn’t think of it as oh Yoruba, Igbo but for some of the people I respect so much to wake and rationalize hating, making, others, I think it a little dangerous and it is the effect of what bad politics can bring. This is why we have international court, this is why we had trials after World War II in Nuremberg because, the damage to our dignity as human persons of the kind of level of politicians who are not mindful of a good social order can promote is bad for society.
We have had the voting process and now it’s post-election and the matter will now be determined by the judiciary from tribunal, to court of appeal to the Supreme Court. After millions of people voting, it will now be down to three persons or seven persons at the highest level. Do you have faith in the Nigerian judiciary to do the right thing?
I think that is not the fair way to put the question. You know, the way we have run our politics has led us to a decreasing faith in the judiciary. I mean, we even have senior advocates of Nigeria, former presidents of NBA saying they don’t have faith in the judiciary. I will not and I usually will not make blanket statements because I believe human beings invested with the dignity of God make choices. Look, I have told a story even on your show of Paris, as World War II was ending, Hitler ordered General Choltitz, who was in charge of the French army in Paris, to destroy the city of Paris and Choltitz looked at himself and said why should history remember me as a man who destroyed the most beautiful city in the world. He sent message to Allied Forces to come in quickly and take Paris. They obviously were irritated because they thought it was a trap, and Hitler saw that he was not burning Paris, he was going to send an SS Panza Division to move in on Choltitz’s Paris and when the news got to Charles De Gaulle, who led the ragtag French Free Forces Army, he drove into Paris and took it without resistance.
This will happen in the Supreme Court anywhere where human beings are. So I can never dismiss a group of people. I mean, it is like saying Yoruba did this. God forbid that I should ever say something like that. Are Yorubas not people like Dele Farotimi, Pa Ayo Adebanjo and the many, many people I meet. In fact and in truth, I tell you, the CEO of a multinational, said to a mutual friend of ours, that he thinks that something is very wrong with what is going on but that if Bola Tinubu is in power, it gives him access as a Yoruba person, so it’s better for him to just allow what is going on to go on so that he can have access. And I thought a CEO of a multinational should not think like that. What has been different my whole life is because I have chosen not to think like that. As a CEO of a multinational, I came out on the streets of Lagos to protest about the annulment of the election of MKO Abiola in 1993. I was beaten on the streets by the Police, I survived two assassination attempt under Abacha because I believe Justice and right was right. It didn’t matter what my ethnicity was. To see that the people that match with me on the street today talk differently, really shakes me to my marrows. And believe me, I am not so sure that if we don’t manage this extremely carefully, that Nigeria will come out of it still the same.
I get your point Professor Utomi but whatever it is, the position of the Nigerian government is that, we have a president-elect and the process of inauguration is on and we have been told that nobody should think of any other option. That’s just where we are right now.
The right of a conscientious objector still exists in every democracy. Mohammed Ali refused to go to Vietnam; it was a conscientious objector. I can choose that I don’t think that this is a democracy and maybe this my current move is to japa, who knows? Is sad but that is the reality we are dealing with.