Professor Pat Utomi , one of the prominent leaders of the Third Force. He speaks with WALE AKINSELURE on the coalition, how the 2023 election will be won and what Nigerians should look out in electing the next president.
In February, you promised a political movement driven by ideas which was described as Third Force. Subsequently, you talked about a mega alliance with Professor Attahiru Jega, Usman Bugaje and a number of other people. With the elections nine months away, it is looking like the Third Force may not become a reality for the 2023 election.
In politics in Nigeria, we are used to wild noisemaking not thoughtful conversation and that is why we are in the mess we are in. Between Sunday and Monday, eight opinion pieces from me on the most critical issues to be discussed for 2023 were published in various Nigerian newspapers. The idea was to set an agenda for a conversation. We have said clearly that we must move from the politics of big men to big issues and I was outlining those issues in those opinion pieces. Also, two days ago, I was in Onitsha addressing significant camps, groups of young people. The day before that, I led a candle light procession from Asaba to Onitsha on the Niger Bridge. Just before I left Lagos, the day before that, we had a press conference on how to raise 40 million brand new voters. People are looking for noise and not substance. That very day, we held the 40 million voters initiative, that I was sitting with Femi Falana, Muiz Banire and a group of serious-minded, fresh thinkers around public life, I had a two-hour radio interview on Rock City FM Abeokuta and people were calling from around the country and we were trying to explain the concepts and where we were going. That is different from the usual noise and crap of Nigerian politics. On Wednesday, Professor Attahiru Jega, Dr Usman Bugaje and a bunch of us are going to unfold from Aso Rock the agenda that can reclaim Nigeria and save it from extinction. We face an existential threat in Nigeria, right now.
The big issues are youths are angry, there are no jobs for them; people are desperate; nothing is happening, so stealing is everywhere; crime is rife in the whole place. The people who are in power, both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are totally clueless on what to do. For a very understandable reason, they are not political parties; these are election machines designed to bring people to power so that they can effect state capture and use the state to furnish their pockets. That is all these two parties represent. I know because I was there at the founding of the two parties. I know the people involved; they are my friends. Those people can never make a country make progress. If they are still there, in five years, this country will be gone, it won’t exist. I want to bet on it. God, in the scripture, says to the people of Israel, I put before you life and death, choose life that you may live. Nigeria is at the point of being between life and death. Assuming that this Third Force is not crystallising, will Nigerians chose death by going back to these two groups? PDP, APC are one party anyway. Can Nigerians themselves rally around and create something for themselves assuming what we are presenting does not happen? But, in truth, it is happening and this is structure we promised, and it is in place already. The structure is a combination of fusion and alliance. In 1999, an alliance promised, from two different parties, the candidacy of Olu Falae and Umaru Shinkafi. In one track, we are working towards that. We have had meetings upon meetings and we are having another one on Wednesday, in Abuja with stakeholders in this process. We came to a number of conclusions. One is that people who want to fuse, merge and those who will like to collaborate but still keep the names of their parties. We want to bring all on board. It is not mutually exclusive. Among those who have been in these meetings include African Democratic Party (ADC), Social Democratic Party (SDP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), National Rescue Movement (NRM) and a number of other parties. But what is different from parties talking to one another is that we have social movements that have become part of the process. Among the movements that have become part of the process are the labour movement, many social movements like farmers networks. Already the membership organisations involved in this movement have more members than all the people that voted for both presidential candidates in the past election. Assuming we can only keep the discipline of getting all the members to vote, we will win the election next year. But, we are going to go much more than that. The question is: what is the basis of the kind of alliance we are trying to build?
There is a purpose we are pursuing and that purpose involves the kinds of interest groups, the kinds of values we are trying to project; it involves the big issues we are trying to drive. You take those three factors and look at what we are trying to do and you will know it is not about running around and generative noise and getting onto front pages of newspapers saying absolutely nothing.
Political parties have begun various activities that will lead up to the election while you still seem to be strategising. You are racing against time. Is participating in the 2023 election still the target for the Third Force?
How long does election take in the United Kingdom, from when it is announced till when the polling takes place? It is usually not up to a month. When you are properly organised, you know what you are going after. Two weeks is enough to execute a campaign. It is joblessness that makes us spend one year running around. The naked truth is that these things are already in place and we will meet all the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deadlines and we will be on the ballot and the issues will be clear and we are already declaring it. It is in the eight opinion pieces I wrote this weekend from how to revive manufacturing to how to revitalize the youths of Nigeria to how to reform education, to healthcare to the finance sector, infrastructure and power. When the issues are clear and the values we are about are clear, what we will do from now on is to begin to communicate. By the way, the next election will not be won in front of your newspaper pages or on television, it will be won on the Internet, that is where the people are. I have had a television show for 22 years. For the last six years, I keep getting angry when I run into people and they ask if I am still running the television show. What it tells you is that there are fewer people watching television; they are getting information from some other medium. It is in that other medium that we will be the most and we will shock people who are going for television sound bits when the results come in.
We have 18 registered political parties, presently. Succinctly, is your movement chrystalising into or adopting one of the political parties or evolving a new political party bearing in mind the various INEC deadlines?
We have a three-process fusion. There are registered political parties who are part of this initiative. Among those people, one or two of them have said they want to merge. That process we can’t do too much on because of INEC guidelines. So, they will do the merging maybe after the election but they are part of this grand alliance or coalition. There are social movements who are involved. They are not political parties; they will fuse into one of the parties as allies, making their fluid networks available. For example, we have the labour movement. In the next two weeks, they will announce which of the parties they have chosen to fuse into; they will bring their entire network into the particular one they have chosen. I can’t say it now; it is their prerogative to say it; they have two choices and they will conclude that by next week. It will be announced by end of this month. Then, there are parties with people like the Peoples Redemption Party (PDP) with people like Professor Attahiru Jega and others who have said we are part of this coalition but we are the oldest, continuous political party in Nigeria.
They trace themselves back to Aminu Kano and it will not be nice for us to lose our name, identity but we are in this coalition. So, SDP, NRM, ADC and others will say when you make your choices, all of us will come together and choose which is the better candidate for national office and through a process make sure we have only one candidate at national level. There might be a party that is dominant in one state. For example, if PRP is dominant in a particular state, we will say that we will allow PRP nominate candidates in that state and none of us will nominate in that state and we will all support PRP. Then we will present one candidate for the major offices. That is what the coalition is about.
Does the coalition foreclose defectors from the APC and PDP?
Not at all. We created two groups we call the R-PDP and R-APC. We jokingly named them the righteous PDP and righteous APC; the good people in those parties can decide that there is too much evil where they are and say they want to move into the third force alliance. We are waiting for them; it will happen. But, we are being very methodical about it, not getting rushed. Leadership is collegial; we are not waiting for this one messiah to come and save everybody; we are together; everybody will stay with whoever is picked. And, he cannot lead just by himself, he has to execute our agenda and collegially consult with everybody. If we are agreed on the issues and on execution formula, running a government is much easier that way than on the whims and caprices of one great man.
The APC and PDP have remained dominant parties, in recent time, what do you consider the greatest challenges facing those ‘smaller’ parties?
The challenge is the people who cornered the state in 1999 took national resources into their own personal pockets and used money as barrier for entry into politics. Even young people trying to sacrifice will be asked for money. What these people who are using state resources, which is criminal, one day, Nigeria will come back for these people. Over 90 percent of governors will go to jail in this country, someday, because they have taken the resources of the people; they use it frivolously in politics; the people are hungry and angry; this is how violent revolution starts. A quarrel may happen in a motor park and people will say ‘Otoge’ and the whole place will be burning. I tell my friends who are governors that they should do everything to avoid this inevitable is coming to us. What is coming is public anger that will lead to the lynching of politicians on the streets of Nigeria. That access to public resources is what differentiates other parties from these ones. The fruit of it is simply corruption and the consequence is death for our country, as we can see everywhere now. The other parties need to recognize that politics is organizing not agonizing. If they are organized, they can outperform those who have the power of the purse.
Does the new Electoral Act bring some form of succor to the ‘smaller’ parties?
It begins a process but we must push INEC to go the logical conclusion. Part of what these so-called big parties do is that they have thuggery machines; they have a domination of the means of violence and that frightens decent, ordinary people so they don’t participate in the electoral process which is de-legitimising Nigerian government. This is because they become government without the mandate of the people. Eventually, they cut the idea of legitimacy which is central to power and authority. You get to where we are where the state government, federal government has no control over the vast area of Nigeria and all kinds of bandits have taken over. It is because of the de-legitimising of the Nigerian state. If only the so-called small parties can organise themselves and tap into the soul of the Nigerian people. If the electoral act is then done properly, then you should be able to vote with your telephone, from your bedroom. If we can transfer millions of Nigeria from our personal account, with that telephone, how much more to cast vote for a person you don’t even know or care about? The only reason they are not implementing that is because they know that if they have proper election that people can vote from the convenience of their bedrooms, they will not be near power, they will all be voted out. We must continue the fight to push INEC to the logical conclusion of saying we can vote electronically, you can vote from your telephone, from your bedroom. You probably will get a 99 percent throw off of everybody running for office, they will all be gone.
We have a system where the majority of Nigerians are involved after parties throw up candidates. How can we have a system where many Nigerians are even involved when parties are to select candidates?
The people should be involved that is why this issue of consensus going around amuses me. The very nature of democracy is competition. Central to that competition process is clear, rational conversation in which you can align with ideas of the different competing candidates and then make a choice and you live with the choice you make. Consensus means to remove the democratic process which is what they do because they know if they allow competition, the place will totally collapse as they represent nothing except power. So, they are trying to avoid the very essence of democracy which is competition. We must pressure the system to realize that this is democracy. If it is military rule, let us accept that that is what is what it is and let’s start shooting from barracks to barracks to see who has more firepower. if it is democracy, it must be competition and competition in the classic sense, flows from rational public conversation, the evolution of the public sphere that allows a market place of ideas. Anything short of this cannot be modern, cannot be democratic. So we have to make a choice. Do we want a modern democracy or do we want Kabiyesi and go back to our slave ways. Nigerians can choose life or death.
Political parties have also thrown up the issue of zoning in selecting their candidates. How do you view the zoning argument? Should zoning be enshrined in our political parties system?
The issue is a red herring. When it is convenient for some of them, they ask for it; when it is not convenient, they say they want competition and throw up all kinds of things. In the end, they are just covering their personal unprincipled positions. What is critical is that we create the kind of competitive environment where ideas will lead to merit deciding who runs. However, merit and fairness have been in competition in human history. There are number of interesting books that anyone who wants to understand these things need to read. What has happened is that to give people a sense of belonging, inclusion, political parties have said let us find ways such that all those we consider stakeholders within certain box get a fairer chance. That is what they called zoning. In a rigid way, that can take away merit where it matters. But, without considering, fairly, all other major blocs, you will get the same de-legitimisation within those areas and it will fuel irredentism, increase their orientation towards self-determination and others. Somehow, a happy, healthy balance needs to be found. If there are people of equal capabilities, let us say geographic. Those who have not had a shot should be preferred in the process; it is just a logical process. But, personally ambitious people who see power as where to go and recoup all their investments in politics will offer all kinds of logical explanations for this or that way. Let us take example of the general view that it should be the turn of an Igbo man to be president of Nigeria. The moment that is mentioned, you see the most useless politicians in the South East begin to jump and shout that this is the South East. Suddenly, they stopped being Igbo. When it is convenient for them, it is Igbo. Now that it is power they think is about using and abusing, they start shouting South East, that means the other Igbos who are the canon folder that take the bullet before the South East usually are now supposed to be excluded, I don’t think that is the thinking of the Igbo man. But, it is that selfish instinct in those individuals. They know they can’t compete, they are trying to narrow things. That is not what this is about. This is about merit fundamentally and primarily, but in the context of that merit system, remembering that inclusion is important and valuable.
Many agree that Nigeria has a leadership problem and you have likened the 2023 election to Nigerians making a choice between life and death. How can a system change happen to bring about the desired leadership; what should Nigerians look out for in selecting their next president?
It should be about the big issues not about big men. They are all running around saying they are the more deserving big man. Where are your ideas? How are you going to solve the problems? I have thrown down the gauntlet. I said the big issues in Nigeria are unemployment, hunger, power. I can’t sleep at night because three of my generating sets have broken down and diesel is out of reach. What kind of misery do people allow happen? Power that was fixed over a hundred years ago but because an elite that cannot think is more driven by graft and greed than by solving simple problems, we are living this misery. Anyone that does not have a plan to double the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), output in five to seven years should not even try to run for the office of president. I do not mean gleam talk; I mean plan. If you do not have a plan to fix power, you should not run. You cannot double the GDP if you don’t fix power anyway. What is the strategy for manufacturing, agriculture? What are going to be the implementation obstacles to your strategy? How will you circumnavigate those obstacles? If you can’t think through this and present logically, please stay in your house. Nigerian people are too miserable to be put through another mess.
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