Political economist, academic, and former presidential candidate Professor Pat Utomi has traced Nigeria’s deepest political and moral failures to the country’s transition from military rule in 1999, warning that the abandonment of ideas for raw power has poisoned public life and hollowed out democracy.
Utomi spoke in an interview with Arise TV News on Wednesday to mark his 70th birthday, reflecting on Nigeria’s past, present, and future, and on the personal cost of a lifetime spent insisting that values, integrity, and ideas must matter in politics.
Asked what life had taught him about Nigeria, Utomi said the country’s struggle must be understood through a long historical lens.
“Socrates was encouraged to drink poison, but Western civilisation was built on his thoughts. In some ways, I am supposed to be consoled by the fact that after I am gone, Nigeria may become great because of the ideas I expressed,” he said.
Utomi argued that Nigeria was gifted to humanity to redeem the dignity of the Black man and reverse the legacy of colonial oppression and slavery.
He lamented that the country had turned its back on intellectual leadership, noting that figures like Obafemi Awolowo and Fela Anikulapo Kuti were profound philosophers whose ideas once shaped public life.
Military Rule and Oil Wealth Changed Everything
Utomi said Nigeria’s decisive rupture came with military rule and oil wealth.
“What I call the dangerous alchemy of soldiers and oil changed everything,” he explained. “The military is centralising by nature, while Nigeria’s founders chose a decentralised federal structure. Then oil revenues began to flow, and we created a prebendal culture — a rent economy where people focused on how much they could extract from the system.”
He warned that power without ideas leads to lasting harm. “You can get power and use it to do so much evil, and in the end you will be remembered as the person who destroyed possibilities.”
Utomi reflected on the heavy price of speaking truth to power.
“This culture despises truth-tellers. Somebody suddenly becomes deputy governor of the Central Bank through a nepotistic system and decides that anyone associated with someone who speaks truth should be frozen out,” he said.
He explained that this repeatedly undermined his economic security, forcing him to work across three continents to provide for his family.
“If Nigeria froze me out, I still earned enough to pay my children’s school fees and give them an upper-middle-class upbringing,” he added.
Democracy “Procedural but Hollow”
Utomi described Nigeria’s democracy as “procedural but hollow”, arguing that elites have merely rotated power rather than transformed governance.
“Public life should be about the pursuit of immortality — sacrificing for the common good. Instead, self-love has exceeded care for the people,” he said.
He lamented the normalisation of hate in politics, warning that dividing people by ethnicity or religion for power does lasting damage. “Economic growth cannot take place in such an environment,” he cautioned.
Despite his criticisms, Utomi said he remained hopeful.
“The possibilities for a great Nigeria still exist. Leadership can emerge that thinks inclusively and focuses on the greater good,” he said.
On emigration, Utomi argued that what appears as brain drain could become brain gain, citing Japan, China, and India where diaspora communities played key roles in national renaissance.
He praised younger Nigerians for valuing ideas, noting that his 70th birthday celebrations were organised by his mentees. “These are young people doing remarkable things, and I’ve had the privilege of walking with them,” he said.
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