The Convener of the National Consultative Front (NCF), Professor Pat Utomi has claimed that Nigeria was structured by politicians to encourage corruption calling for institutional reforms to end the menace.
Utomi made this assertion in an interview with Arise Television which was monitored by Africa Today News, New York yesterday.
The economist claims that politicians’ encouragement of corruption rather than their desire to serve the public interest is the reason for Nigeria’s current economic difficulties.
Regarding the nation’s difficulties and stifled economic progress, Utomi stated that the reason civil workers are not employed is because the political party that wins an election does not put policies in place for the government to support development and growth.
He said, “The truth of the matter, the naked truth, is that what is happening in Nigeria is inevitable because the Nigerian State is not constructed to serve the Nigerian people. It is constructed to be bargaining between politicians looking to share booty. Because that is what it is, you will have all this corruption.”
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He said the reason for Nigeria’s lack of growth, and the reason for several multinationals leaving the country, is majorly because of the blatant corruption that has been displayed by Nigerian politicians and those in government.
Utomi said, “Nigeria is not a working democracy, and part of the effort of building a strong and viable political party is to make our democracy work first and foremost, before other people begin to think about another election.
“The problem with Nigeria is that we’ve fought in terms of elections. We go through a mess that is called an election, we say okay, let’s wait for the next one. No, that’s not how countries grow and develop. Countries grow and develop, first of all, by founding political parties.
“I can say without any feeling of wrong that we don’t have a political party in Nigeria today. What we have managed to couple together since 1999 have been platforms for machine politics where the game is about just grabbing power rightly or wrongly and sharing spoils.”
He said Nigeria has engaging in cycle of violent elections without properly building political parties, adding that the political class has neglected the development of the country.
According to Utomi, the neglected Nigerians end up bearing the brunt of the challenges between politicians.
He said, “The Nigerian people have become so frustrated, so fed up, with the nature of the way Nigerian politicians carried on, that when Peter Obi said the right things, it resonated and drove the emergence of a movement that generally got called the Obidient movement around the world, Nigerian diaspora. And if you look at the resurgence of many of the success stories of the 20th century, they had a diaspora base.
“So, the Nigerian diaspora rallied very strongly around the fact that this gentleman was saying a few things right, and a campaign like Nigeria hasn’t seen in a long time happened, and it was deliberately sabotaged, whatever you say about it. The point remains, how do you go forward when you meet this?
“You’ve got to realise and take advantage in trying to save Nigeria that the majority of this country is young. A significant part of our population is under 25. It is fed up, it is looking for something new, but it is also trapped. That’s the most dangerous thing about where we are. This generation is trapped in their values.”
Speaking on a possible merge of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP), and the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) and who will should lead the merged party, Utomi simply said it doesn’t matter who is in charge.