In a powerful and personal reflection, renowned political economist Professor Pat Utomi has expressed deep sorrow over Nigeria’s current state, questioning how history will judge the choices made by the country’s ruling elite.
As he approaches his 70th birthday, the founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership confessed in an opinion he penned down, to being in a “continuous state of examination of conscience,” wondering what he made of the gift of life and whether salvage of his wrongs is possible.
These personal reflections, he explained, make it difficult for him to understand those “who are without remorse for what we are handing our children as country and legacy.”
Professor Utomi painted a grim picture of Nigeria today, listing its grim titles: “Poverty capital of the world, lowest place for life expectancy on the planet, terrorism hotbed, etc. etc.”
He compared this reality to other nations that were Nigeria’s peers or worse just decades ago. “As I still manage to travel to countries that were our peers or were considered worse off when I was a swaggering teenager, now much better places to be called human, I quiver in remorse and bowed in shame,” he wrote, mentioning recent trips to South East Asia and Morocco where “palpable progress and discipline of the human spirit” were evident.
The professor saved strong words for the political class, whom he described as a “dying brood that has had a lifetime of unfettered parasitic dwelling on the blood of the commonwealth.”
Referring to reports of new plans to “abuse the electoral process,” Utomi asked, “Has Nigeria not suffered enough from the desperation to lord it over a people that desire differently?”
He questioned whether those who have “captured the Nigerian state” do not feel the negative effects of the “crisis of legitimacy their ways have caused.” He wondered if they had not “’enjoyed’ enough the fruits of their abuse at such high cost for nation building and people living peacefully with their neighbours.”
Addressing the “aging dinosaurs who have brought Nigeria to its current prostrate place,” Utomi asked if their aging bodies did not remind them of “the final words of Pope John Paul 11 before the bombs began to drop on Iraq: the judgment of Conscience, the Judgment of history and the Judgment of God.”
As a student of institutions in human progress, the professor said he often wonders how key players in Nigeria’s failing systems view their place in history. “How does a highly educated person like Mahmoud Yakubu think of how he and his INEC glitches will be treated by history,” he pondered.
He pointed to Singapore, where leaders who compromised institutional integrity “often committed suicide,” contrasting it with Nigeria where such individuals “still walk with a swag,” which he said tells “much of the collapse of culture.”
Professor Utomi concluded with a profound sense of generational failure. “I deeply feel the sense of the failure of my generation,” he wrote, explaining that his generation’s mission was to redeem the errors of the past and “save the black man from a looming thousand years of servitude.”
Instead, he argued, “the emerging elite was overrun by politicians who compromised it all for houses in Europe and Private Jets the way their forefathers sold their brothers for a mirror and Brandy bottle, a few generations back.”
While admitting that time has taken the “Paul Kagame option” from him, the professor ended on a note of prayer and hope – for the judgments that lie ahead and for the dignity of those his generation failed.
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