Chukwudike Ndubeze, Awka
Former Presidential Adviser and Co-convener of the National Consultative Forum of Leaders of Conscience, Professor Pat Utomi, has blamed Nigeria’s backwardness on what he called “the politics of big men” played by politicians in the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Utomi who stated this at a press conference in Lagos on Friday, urged Nigerians to shun both parties at the 2023 general election.
According to him, the existential challenges facing the country spurred some ideas-driven leaders to begin to have meetings to restore the nation to its pride of place among the comity of nations.
Utomi, who was a former member of APC and PDP, said “the parties have failed Nigeria and should not be allowed to continue to rule”.
His stated: “We must now forge a consensus and the national unity team approach to governing during this season of a yet-to-be declared national emergency which poses an existential threat to all the parties notwithstanding.
“Now the democratisation of misery from the spread of insecurity, poverty, and disease has become evident to both those who think they have cornered power and those who consider themselves victims of power.
“Surely Afenifere, Arewa Consultative Forum and Ohaneze Ndigbo, Niger Delta People Congress, and the Middle Belt Forum can be consulted to nominate people into this unity government forum that can walk us through the evil forest of now.
“Some of us involved in the process of building the political platform have been particularly keen on getting the emphasis right so that it becomes much more than an election contestation machine.
“We know that the trouble with PDP and APC is primarily that their sole purpose was to win elections and wrest power. They paid so little attention to how to govern and the results have come in. The chicken has come home to roost.
“In truth, it was just the continuation of a pattern. The previous chairmen of both PDP and APC Secondus and Oshiomole, had been summarily shoved aside without due process in the contravention of the rule book play pattern in both parties. All this is in the face of longstanding criticism of the absence of internal democracy in the parties.
“The long-drawn painstaking efforts to construct an alternative political track are to avoid the errors of the APC and PDP and socialise interest into clear values and ethics of the party and train all on the basic policy planks from the vision and grand and human development ideas of the platform party of the Third Force.
“We are therefore calling on Faith groups, and community leaders, alumni associations to seek out the members of their communities and bring them forward with a suggested positions they should contest.
“In the last few hours, Prof Wole Soyinka has spoken in despair about the politicians of APC and PDP.
“We must seek to forgive but we must not forget how we got here and avoid it and at least sterilize those who got us here for a season.”
