…says he’s spoken with Atiku, Kwankwaso, Obi, others
Renowned political economist, Prof. Pat Utomi, has said that the proposed mega party to unseat the All Progressives Congress in the next election was taking shape as he had spoken with the presidential candidates of the other major political parties in the 2023 election over the development.
Speaking on Channels Television’s “Politics Today” on Wednesday, Utomi, a chieftain of the Labour Party, said he had spoken with the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, that of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and their New Nigeria Peoples Party counterpart, Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Recall that the candidates of these three political parties came second, third, and fourth, in that order, in the 2023 presidential election.
“I talked to several of the presidential candidates in the last election about this track we are traveling,” Utomi said.
“I have had conversations with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. I have had conversations with Engineer Rabiu Kwankwaso. I have had conversations with Peter Gregory Obi and people like Ralph Okey Nwosu of ADC (African Democratic Congress) and some of the people who probably constitute the base.
“I had said to them: ‘It is not about you. It is about Nigeria. It’s about the ordinary people in the street. It is about truly moving from this business of sharing from trickles of oil sales to how we can become one of the most productive economies’.
“It is actually a clean start. You have to start from the premise that Nigeria has not had a political party since 1999 and let’s be very honest with ourselves, what we have managed is to create platforms that enable machine politics from which to grab power usually for the purposes of state capture.
“We want to calm down now to design a real political party with clear ideas of how you will become part of it, what you will do in it and therefore you accept to do or not to do before you come into it.
“It is where there will be a clear agenda, a party plan that the day you arrive in office, everybody from Permanent Secretary to Level 8 Officer knows what to do every day to move Nigeria to a certain level. You don’t do it, you get fired,” he said.
