Pat Utomi, a professor of political economy, says he has
held talks with Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso over the
possibility of forming a new political party that would give the ruling All
Progressives Congress (APC) a run for its money.
Utomi spoke on Wednesday on Channels Television’s Politics
Today programme.
Abubakar, Obi and Kwankwaso were the presidential candidates
of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) and the New Nigeria
Peoples Party (NNPP) respectively in the 2023 elections.
Utomi is also a chieftain of the LP.
He said the new party, if formed, will be a clean start,
with ideas and a clear agenda, adding that since Nigeria’s return to democracy
in 1999, there has not been a real political party in the country.
“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 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 is 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, 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 clear agenda, a party plan that
the day you arrive in office, everybody from permanent secretary to level 8
officer know what to do every day to move Nigeria to a certain level.
“You don’t do it, you
get fired.”
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