Pat Utomi, celebrated egg-head is a profitable and desirable brand. But he started shaky. SEGUN KASALI, SYLVESTER OKORUWA and LANRE ADEWOLE had a session with the iconic figure.
WERE you told of special circumstances of your birth?
There were peculiar circumstances. I know a lot about the day I was born and the environment. At the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, those days, records were kept through what is called microfiche and one of my favourite pastimes was to go to the library and try and read up events of when I was born. I was born on February 6, 1956, in Kaduna. This young Queen of England was visiting Kaduna on that day. She was going out to imperial outposts. The colonial Nigeria being one of the imperial outposts. My family was living in Jos as at that time. My mother was coming due and my father’s senior sister and husband and the family lived in Kaduna. So, it was thought that they should kill more than one bird at a time. Two, because my aunt was in a good isotonic to look after the pregnant wife of her elder brother.
So, my mother came to Kaduna and February 7, went out to wave to the queen and she went into labour. So, I was not born in a hospital. I was born on the road as a result of that. When Prince Charles, with his late wife, Princess Diana, visited Nigeria, the then British High Commissioner found out the circumstances of my birth and I was invited to meet Prince Charles. The deputy high commissioner told Prince Charles the story and Prince Charles wondered how many people would have been born in those circumstances. But the thing I consider special about my birth and upbringing, generally speaking, it was truly pan-Nigerian. Few weeks later, I was baptised in Jos. My father shortly moved to Maiduguri and not more than a year after, he moved to Kano. I started school in Kano. And then, he was moved again. My father worked for British Petroleum then. He was moved to Gusau in today’s Zamfara State. So, most of my primary education took place in Gusau. I went to a school called Our Lady of Fatimah in Gusau. I moved from Gusau to Onitsha, where I enrolled at Christ The Kings College. But shortly after, the civil war started and I moved to Ibadan. I later went back to the East to the University of Nigeria.
How fluent is your Hausa language?
I used to be fluent in all the three languages. In the last 30 to 40 years, I had hardly spoken any of the Nigerian languages.
Why?
Because of the circumstances of where I have been and what I do. I can still speak them, but not as fluently as I used to when I was much younger.
How was life in the North then?
Fun. I was a rascal. I was so rascally that all my primary school teachers had a meeting. But the remark I get on my report card is usually ‘brilliant, but troublesome. In the middle of all that, I had a very strange discipline because as a catholic kid, you woke up by 5. 00 am, and rode your bicycle to go and serve mass. The priests back then were American Catholic from the United States of the Dominican Order and at that time, John F. Kennedy, had just been elected the first president of the US. He was a Catholic.
Does that mean your nature did not allow you to consider priesthood?
I was going to be a priest.
So, what changed?
As you are growing up, all kinds of influences come that affect you. Interestingly, one of my classmates became a priest, Father Sebiomo in Ibadan. I think the single biggest effect that changed that was another very good friend of mine growing up—Olumide Lawal. Olumide, immediately after school certificate went to flying school and less than a year after, he was back in the country and he is a commercial pilot. When he came back, we went everywhere. We drove around in his car. Of course, with that influence, I wanted to be a pilot. We would be driving around Surulere because he had a fancy car, an American sport and looking for girls who wanted lift. The trick was that we won’t just stop for girls waiting for lift, but the girls that the Toyota car or the Datsun man had stopped for. Then, we pulled up in front of that car with the fancy American sport car. The girl would look at the car, compare it with ours, and tell the man ‘excuse me sir, I have seen my uncle.’
Even at that young age in the North, how much of social life did you participate in?
I had a full social life. Ordinarily, I could have died, but I fell into a gutter which was pack full of dried leaves that had been falling from the trees while plucking fruits. So, it was a bed I fell into. I was eight years old at that time.
The narrow escapes, how many?
Oh, my life is full of narrow escapes. I have had so many near-death experiences starting from those that came from rascality to assassination attempts because of my march for June 12 and the founding of the Concerned Professionals. I was a target of the Abacha’s administration. There were some assassination attempts that I somehow escaped. I have had two very close plane crashes. On a plane going to Abuja, I was certain the aircraft would crash. Somehow, I had a belief that I would survive it, but it would crash anyway. There was a woman sitting beside me, I got to know the names of all her children as she shouted “Chinyere!!! I’m sorry I did not say goodbye.” The flight was originating from Owerri into Abuja. So, when the pilot unbelievably managed to regain altitude, it started flying to Lagos. The ultimate of this was a motor accident on the 12th of July, 1991. I came from Germany on a Thursday night and was going for a burial in Asaba on Friday. My driver ran into a trailer parked in the middle of the road. It was 7pm. Then, cars from behind ran into us. Unfortunately, my driver died on the spot. I was in and out of the shock by the time I arrived the operating theatre. Eventually I was moved from one hospital to another. The doctors said I was really dead. A doctor said to the Chief of surgery that ‘Chief, we have lost him’. But they said let’s fulfil all righteousness and they moved in. But then, most of the blood in my system were already in my abdomen, I was hemorrhaging internally. They cut up my intestine that had been cut to pieces and a bit of it was reset as they say in medicine. The following day I woke up, but I had to be flown to Germany for the care.
How did you turn to be what you are now ?
I was looking to go into flying school. My father was very clever the way he went about it. He didn’t object but suggested we go and visit his friend, who was a Director at Nigerian Airways back then. They explained to me and I was feeling very good and I thought it was a fair deal. So, I agreed to take the concessional entrance exams. To my surprise, I was admitted to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. And when I was there, something dramatic happened because I was just trying to spend my two years and go to flying school. Just immediately after the civil war, University of Nigeria lost a lot due to the war, such as damaged buildings. It was struggling to recover, but not enough resources. Books and journals were being donated all over the world. I ended up as the guy who had access to the library as a volunteer librarian. So, a sense of responsibility set in and I found myself very excited about academic works. That’s the way I was able to weed out passion for flying school, finished two Master’s degrees and Ph. D at 26.
There is this general thinking that Professor Pat Utomi is just naturally brilliant.
Iro (falsehood) (general laughter).
So, have you always been after knowledge?
I was a complete truant and did not come first in class. Well, in Primary school, I came first. In secondary school, I had a senior of mine who always thought I was much more clever than I performed because of my truancy and all of that. And the year he took school certificate, I don’t know what happened that year but I decided to study a little. In my class that we were like 70-something, I used to be somewhere around 30th with the thinking that it was good enough and what’s my own. So, I studied a little that year and jumped from that 30th to I think 11th. As a truant, I escaped before the end of term. That year, I won the progress prize, but I wasn’t there to collect it because truancy had taken me. Of course in later years, I became a workaholic. When I got to graduate school, things had changed completely.
Any regret not being a pilot?
At all, but I have more flying hours than many pilots. I could be airborne six times a week in the country. Take this week for example, I came in on Monday from Enugu and went to Abuja on Tuesday. I was going on Tuesday when I was told that the meeting had been rescheduled and I de-boarded. Another meeting was called yesterday and, as a result, yesterday afternoon I flew to Abuja. I came in this morning. Tonight, I am flying to Johannesburg. I will come in over the weekend and Tuesday, I am in Warri. I think I have been able to make up for not being a pilot by traveling as much as a pilot can.
How did you meet your wife?
After I returned from the graduate study in the US around 1982, I had a friend who grew up with me. In Gusau, we were classmates. When I got to CKC, Onitsha, we met again. Then, we departed with the civil war. Then, when I went to Nsukka, we met again. He came back from graduate school in 1982 and was living three doors away. This guy thought he had personal duty and calling from God that he must save me from becoming a nerd (Laughs). By the time I came from graduate school, I was a completely different kind of guy, just studious. This guy would just come to my door and knock, saying ‘ol boy, make we go buy suya.’ We would wander around to buy Suya. Invariably, he would find an excuse to go to Idi-Araba, in the medical female students’ hostel. To cut the long story short, we ended up marrying classmates and roommates.(Laughs).
Is there anything madam is trying to change in you?
Many. Not just one or two. I mean I’m not the most organised type of person. I’m a lot scattered. I do many things at the same time and she’s the opposite. She’s very organised the bed is made like the clinical. By the time she does a little thing, you try to respect yourself and put yourself in order. We disagree from time to time on different issues, but it has never been physical. When I’m very upset, I walk away and come back later and I don’t remember something happened.
Looking at your parents, who would you say you actually took after?
Oh, I think it’s natural to think father. Father was a workaholic like I am. He was a very strong person. I have the capacity and the energy to go several days without sleep. Not recommended, don’t try that with your children. But I am passionate about the dream to just keep going and going.
Do you enforce discipline like your dad, no flogging at home?
No, I have only given a small tap. We’ve had some family traditions that have worked magic by God’s grace. Till today, we have a family tradition of what we call family get-together. Every Tuesday evening, the whole family sits together begin to talk about their issues, problems, challenges, their dreams. When they were much younger, we used to do it on Saturdays but now on Tuesdays. Even those that have left home would come back to join in that meeting. Up till last Tuesday, we had it. We also do it on Sunday morning, where we have a long breakfast after mass. We talk about all kinds of things during breakfast.
People are motivated by different quotes, in life. What’s yours?
I have more than a thousand quotes. There are personal life ones and there are public life ones. For public life one, it’s Machiavellian about change- nothing is more difficult to bring about than a new order of things because those who profit from the old order will do everything to prevent the new order from coming. Those who will profit from the new order will not do enough to effect the change because man is incredulous in nature, not wanting to try new things until he has experienced it. So, you know from that, change is one of the most constant things in life. Change is very different to effect. Many of my personal effectiveness quotes come from Stephen Covey, who says seek first to understand before being understood. Our tendency as people, is hear me out. We don’t listen enough and we are not good listeners. Anyone who knows me well know that one of my strong points is that I listen to people, not in a rush to offer my opinion. I try to listen and understand where you are coming from.
You always appear serious-minded.
Me? You are deceiving yourself if you say I’m serious minded. I would have been a comedian. It’s impossible to be in my company without laughing. I told Alibaba that he would have been a small boy if I had not dumped my talent. People look at me and say look at this serious person (laughs). We were Fela’s boys in those days. We used to go the Shrine. We took Fela for the first time to the East after the civil war, January 31st, Enugu campus of the University of Nigeria.
Have ladies really moved away from you?
Why should they move away from me? What offence have I committed? (Laughs) I just make sure I reduce the incidence of wahala. If you know how much wahala those things cost you, you better run as fast as you can. Let me tell you this and this is true. Day before yesterday, I was going to Warri. I boarded and saw some women on the queue, flashy and all. And one of them got really bold and came to me from where she wanted to board and said ‘hey, I am your friend on Facebook. In fact, you’ve just joined Instagram’. Can I take a photograph with you and thank you on Instagram? I don’t even have time and energy for all these. Between you and I, they maintain it for me. I used to be very much on Twitter, Facebook and all of that until I found out that there is a lot of Facebook, abuse of your personality. But two and a half years ago, I quit Facebook, Twitter etc. I just post things through my assistant on Facebook. But anyway, they recently insisted I must get on Instagram and ever since, I don’t think I’ve posted anything. So, she said she would tag me on Instagram and she hugged me really close. That moment I remembered when I was young. But you know what I did? As soon as the plane landed, I ran. I didn’t want an opportunity for any further explanation.
Sir, what’s that thing that gives you a lot of joy but not plenty money?
I seldom get plenty of money anyway. Really, I’m of use to someone else especially someone that is downtrodden. During my college days, I was always in trouble, fighting for somebody. If you check 90 or 95 per cent of the time that I fought in my high school, I was fighting someone for bullying somebody and that person who was bullied is usually bigger than me. As an older person, I reflect on those things and wonder what’s wrong with me. You are fighting for somebody who’s bigger than you, that someone who is bigger than, is bullying? I just hate injustice.
What can you call your indulgence?
I like to look decent, if not the most expensive suit in the world. I like to look very neat. The incredible truth is that most of the things I wear, I have them free of charge. One of the big producers of this stuff that I am wearing is one gentleman called Emeka Opara of Airtel.
Any particular incident with unforgettable memories?
One of the near-death experiences I didn’t talk about was the terrorist bombing in 2005. I arrived London from Lagos that morning. I had a meeting in Essex on Good Governance in Africa and also lunch appointment with Chief Emeka Anyaoku and Rilwan Lukman. I needed to take the train to the Victoria station. One guy, who also boarded the train, brushed pass me and went to the tail end of the train. And as we started going, not less than 10mins on board of the train, people were dying all over and all around. People were crying, screaming. Obviously, someone did a video of it and it was aired on CNN and I saw myself. I didn’t know the guy was a suicide bomber. I didn’t know that the guy, who brushed pass me, on the train, was the one who blew himself up. He could have stopped in front of me and I would have become an ancient of history. But he went to that end of the coach and that’s was how I was far enough to have escaped death. But the air of the gas gave me a stomach upset.
This is a Yes or No question. Are you still running for president?
It depends. Anyways I’m running for governor of Delta next year.
and then