I Will Run For President...Pat Utomi
Pat Utomi, 50, professor, banker, television talk-show host, writer and thinker, had on the record discussions with Elendureports.com for nearly two hours. The interview touched on a lot of issues bothering the Nigerian State today. His answers were candid and sometimes mind boggling. It is hard to miss the fact that here is a young man at peace with himself and always available to share his ideas.
Utomi and I have mutual friends and after the interview we rejoined our friends and talked some more, joked and generally had fun till very late in the evening. Whether he was telling jokes and laughing uncontrollably or discussing the intricacies of the Nigerian economy, this iconoclastic figure came across as a simple man with an uncommon mind. Here is the first part of our interview with Dr. Pat Utomi of the Lagos Business School.
ER: You had made a comment to the effect that you were willing to give up your life for the Nigerian cause. Did you really mean that?
Utomi: Yeah, I mean every bit of it. Life is about meaning. What is the meaning of your life? It is a matter of context. If the context in which you derive meaning of who you are is such that you need to doubt whether your whole purpose have been fulfilled then true meaning can be found in trying to change that because that’s not how life is supposed to be…that your life is without purpose. It becomes a duty to try and change that environment. One of the reasons that Nigeria continues to be the way it is is that too many of us are too comfortable in our comfort zones. We are too scared that something might disrupt that comfort. And we keep quiet and things are going wrong. In the end there is no comfort zone. If you go back to Liberia and you ask the Liberian middle class if they have any reflections on their experiences, all they will tell you is that when things were going wrong in Liberia, they thought…ah let’s leave those silly politicians alone…they are a bunch of horrible people and if we speak up we’ll be disrupting our comfort. In the end most of them ended up as refugees in other countries, that is, those who were lucky. Many were killed, lives destroyed. In Sierra Leone, it was even worse…many had their hands and feet chopped off…maimed for life because they were struggling so hard to protect their lives and in the end they lost everything. Whenever I think of the Nigerian condition and why it’s important for people to do their duty to make sure that we have a better society even if it means putting their lives on the line, I remember the famous statement by the Rev. Martin Nimola about Hitler’s Germany. He said “You know, first they came for the Jews and I said: those Jews, they brought it upon themselves. Then they came for the communist and I said, well, I’m not a communist. Then they came for the Catholics and I said I’m Anglican. And finally they came for me and there was nobody there to speak for me.” Unless we move proactively and are willing to make sacrifices…some of which might seem they are life-defining sacrifices, in the end we will die and die more shamefully.
ER: So, what in practical terms, are you willing to die for?
Utomi: Of course, I’m not a masochist…I’m not a suicide person but whatever is right to do, I am willing to do even if there is an apparent…and…many times we think we are putting our lives on the line, it is only in the mind because those people who put their lives on the line don’t have six heads, they too are afraid to die but we build up this fear around us. Everything that is legitimate to do to prevent the social order from being disrupted, I am willing to engage.
ER: What do you say to people who say: well, Pat Utomi has made money and a name for himself so the natural progression is to seek power! Do you want to run for President?
Utomi: If it takes running for President, then that’s what must be done. I have never been unwilling to do whatever I consider duty. This business of made a name…made money, the natural progression for somebody who has made name and money is to avoid trouble. What you want to do is go quietly and enjoy your name and money. As I say to people, God has been kind to me…kinder than I deserve. Public office…presidency of Nigeria will diminish me more than it would enhance me, if you really think about it. The point of becoming president of Nigeria will diminish me more than it will enhance me. But if that is the price…the sacrifice for helping change our country, then it must be made. The Nigerian may find that logic strange because they think of power as the apex but for me it’s not. If you were an American, would you rather be some troubled public office holder or Bill Gates? My perfect example is the man that NEWSWEEK magazine gave the title of GLA…the Greatest Living American, even though he was in politics was not the president of the United States. He was far from being the richest man in America. He was Sen. Patrick Daniel Monihan. He was so outstanding because of his intellect. Being a Senator did not add to him, it just brought out what Monihan had and put it on the platform to make a difference in how Americans thought of issues. And people recognized and respected that. To me, that is the meaning of life…the ultimate is to be thought of like Monihan not being the president of Nigeria.
ER: So, to you running for president or being in public office would remove the aura of the sage?
Utomi: Yes, it diminishes…
ER: But some would see it as the ultimate, to serve your people…
Utomi: That is a different line of thinking…the reason that I could do it is that it is duty to give that service…that is why I say even if it means diminishing yourself…tarnishing yourself…because it is duty that can make a difference, one would do it. And if one manages to do it well with the grace of God, then it can be said at that point that it is an elevation…not because of the power but because of the service that you have given. And that is one of the things that amaze me…it really does amaze me. I don’t know why people cling to power. If it is something like the office of president, frankly, I don’t think I would want more than one term…because you can give of yourself so completely in four years that you are so drained because you have given everything you have to make life better for people that you must want to rush back and spend time with your family. I can’t imagine myself going for more than one term. You can do a decent job during that one term if you are working with other people as a team…not just you as the team...and you are working with everybody on that team as a whole, you don’t have to be around for more than one term. And when I hear people asking for third term I say to myself immediately they must have goal displacement…service cannot possibly be the driver of this orientation.
ER: What is your assessment of the politics as it is practiced in Nigeria today?
Utomi: Politics of Nigeria, I think, is tragic that the energy they should be using to take a people who should not be poor out of the most disgraceful kinds of poverty we experience in Nigeria, that energy is being diverted to discussing issues like tenure of a public office holder in a country that has so many people of good standing who are capable of providing a direction if we have a consensus on where we should be going we are spending so much time saying one or two people should be around for ever because we need their leadership…that is absolute bunkum...total nonsense. I think of a Nigeria run by a bunch of twenty-something and thirty-something year olds who were so ill-exposed because they were a bunch of soldiers who didn’t get any proper training. And the country held together with the advice of a few civil servants who knew a little better than them. That same country we are told that people who have spent their lives around the world, had the best education, cannot run it. Those same guys who as twenty-something year olds didn’t know their right from their left and ran it, are still the only ones who can run it. It is a gratuitous insult on the Nigerian people. I think that if the people who go around saying this know what they are saying they will feel so ashamed of themselves that they will not able to walk on the streets.
ER: I take it you don’t support the third term agenda of Pres. Obasanjo?
Utomi: I am as clear as words crafted in marble. The idea is obnoxious, it is unethical. It defeats the cause of institution building in Nigeria. It subverts the cause of Nigeria’s democracy and very importantly, it tells the world that Nigeria is not ready for prime time.
ER: Third term is not the only issue dealt with by the Mantu Panel. How would you rate the exercise of Constitutional amendment?
Utomi: For many years I have said that Nigeria needs to rethink the modus vivendi. People need to sit together to discuss where Nigeria is going…for a variety of reasons. We’ve had many challenges through the years. Very importantly, the 1999 Constitution which we run is basically fraudulent because it declares: We the people…and yet the people could not be said to have participated in the process of making that Constitution. People like me have talked about it and then suddenly a regime which had said for a long time we should not discuss this issue suddenly discovers the need to discuss it, then decides that within a couple of months Nigeria should finish a process that takes years. The process is flawed. The debate should go on for years so that we can get it right. We should not amend the Constitution in an atmosphere of intimidation or rush. To do so, would make the document itself subject to need for review shortly after it is finished.
To be continued
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I Will Run For President...Pat Utomi
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