PROF. PAT UTOMI, AN INTELLECTUAL DRAMA KING~ APC National Publicity Secretary

ONN Abuja 9.05.2025

PRESS STATEMENT

Professor Pat Utomi must be an intellectual drama king of sorts. His declaration of a “Big Tent Coalition Shadow Government” of May 5, 2025, stands in direct contradiction and refutal of the very justification he advanced for the latest of his several “big bang” things that have never materialized.

In his declaration, Utomi claimed that “policy missteps of the current federal government had worsened poverty” and that the government had resorted “to propaganda and the suppression of opposing views”, arguing that the “recent spate of defections to the All Progressives Congress (APC) provides further evidence that all is not well with democracy in Nigeria.”

Utomi is, and has always been, a poster child of freedom of thought, speech, conscience, association, and even freedom of intellectual aggression. Utomi has enjoyed and continues to enjoy his fullest constitutional right to think, say and act as he chooses. He continues to enjoy democratic choice freely, unconstrained and unrestrained. He has gained global recognition as a serial promoter of “mega parties”, mega “coalitions” and “mega tents”, hindered only by the unrealism of his contraptions.

The suggestion that President Bola Tinubu’s administration is suppressing opposing views is simply preposterous. Utomi’s unilateral declaration of a “shadow government”, in a presidential democracy, is, in and of itself, an exercise of democratic freedom and free speech, in the extreme.

It is deeply disturbing and desperately dramatic for Utomi to liken Nigeria’s democratic experience to “fascist conditions” in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. That approximation is reckless, irresponsible and insensitive and should be beneath a man of Utomi’s standing but has clearly cast reason and rationality aside for sensational and virulent discourse.

The announcement of a “shadow government” by Utomi is stellar evidence of Nigeria’s flourishing democracy, a categorical demonstration of impunity of opposition actors, and the high tolerance of dissent by the Tinubu administration.

Utomi’s partisan disorientation - his failed bid for the Delta State APC gubernatorial ticket in 2019, an unfulfilled stalwart of Labour Party (LP) in Peter Obi’s 2023 presidential campaign, and his several dead on arrival “third force” mega opposition gamble - has clearly taken a huge toll on the erudite Professor’s political judgment.

That Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of LP both campaigned, like President Tinubu, to end the system of fuel subsidy is not propaganda as Utomi alleges in his revisionist quibbles. Rather, it is a statement of fact that both Atiku and Obi campaigned on that policy approach. Even as a political economist, Utomi continues to fumble through conversations on the question of an alternative approach to both policies. Simply exploiting and dramatizing what are inevitable initial difficulties associated with the policies Nigerians have had to endure for sustainable growth and prosperity is not genius, it smacks of crass political opportunism and desperation.

No democratic norm obligates a ruling party to build and teach opposition parties how to govern themselves. Just as there is no democratic tenet that prohibits a ruling party from accepting citizens that choose to join its membership. APC bears not responsibility to administer the internal affairs of opposition parties and takes no responsibility for the dysfunction and seeming disintegration of the parties.

It is mind boggling how Utomi and his fellow opposition figures who boast of superior knowledge of solutions to Nigeria’s complex problems and challenges have been unable to sensibly and competently manage the internal affairs of their parties but continue to spew vile accusations against the APC without any shame. And they want Nigerians to put their trust and destiny in their inept hands. Our people are far more discerning than that.

The wave of defections into the APC, while indicative of the rudderless leadership of opposition parties, is a clear endorsement of the visionary and inclusive leadership of President Bola Tinubu, and the massive transformation that is now underway in our country.

These defectors are citizens who have decided to be direct participants in the unfolding historic repositioning of our nation, who have elevated patriotism over partisanship and ready to place their hand on deck with this bold President of progress to steer the ship of the Nigerian state away from the brink to stable safer and prosperous grounds.

Signed:

Felix Morka, Esq.

National Publicity Secretary

All Progressives Congress (APC)