Nigeria’s Professor of Political Economy and Management, Professor
Pat Utomi, has slammed the country’s politicians for undermining the
country’s democracy, saying they prefer women than they genuinely desire
the development of the nation.
According to Prof. Utomi, the
present crop of politicians in the country are more interested in
sleeping with women than they are concerned about the country’s growth
and progress when compared with the likes of the late Chief Obafemi
Awolowo.
Utomi said this while speaking as a guest lecturer at a
special parliamentary session held by the Lagos State House of Assembly
in commemoration of the second anniversary of the Seventh Assembly and
20 years of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won
by the late Chief Moshood Abiola.
According to the former
presidential candidate on the platform of the African Democratic
Congress, ADC, leaders like the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was able to
make positive changes in the country because they surrounded themselves
with experts and people who could think.
He said this was
different these days as political office holders now only appoint those
who could help them get girls and women when the need arises, adding
that this was part of the challenges facing the country.
He also castigated political office holders for acting with impunity in the country forgetting that power is transient.
“In
some parts of the world, I get a ticket for a train ride and
surprisingly, the next person standing close to you to take same train
is the Speaker of a parliament. But here, you see the Speaker of a
parliament moving with four or five security officers,” he lamented.
He appealed to political leaders to re-trace their steps.
Also
in his lecture, the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lagos State
University, Professor Abubakar Momoh, blamed politicians for heating up
the polity through what he described as political rhetoric.
He called Nigeria a crippled giant and lamented that the country was not thinking beyond the crude oil it exports.
According
to him, if Nigeria stops exporting crude oil, it will become poorer
than Togo which earns its revenue from various export policies.
“We
are suffering the illusion of oil. We have not yet arrived,” he
lamented further quoting some ministers in the President Goodluck
Jonathan cabinet as saying that the country’s Vision 20-20 of becoming a
leading global economy is no longer realistic.
He also lamented
the level of poverty giving the politicians the opportunity to continue
to deceive people with promises that are not realisable.
He
slammed political leaders for deliberately destroying the country’s
educational sector, challenging them to send their children to public
schools if they felt he was telling lies.
As a result of this, he
said, tertiary institutions in the country now produce the kinds of
graduates which the market requires and not ones that could easily
better the society.
The scholar also described the banking sector
of the country as a challenged institution, saying their practices and
policies have not helped businesses.
According to him, these banks
now concentrate on giving short term loans with very high interest
rates to the extent that most manufacturing houses have now been
converted into churches.
“Politicians are the ones that have
destroyed our schools,” he declared, adding that former President
Olusegun Obasanjo and Shehu Musa Yar’Adua sent their children to public
schools when they led the country in the 1970s.
He noted that a
global statistics had put the number of Nigeria’s unemployed at 73
million while a total of 10.5 million are out of school. He noted that
the Universal Basic Education Programme had become a drain pipe riddled
with corruption.
Prof. Momoh lamented that at this stage of the
country’s existence, the government cannot provide potable water or meet
the little demands of the poor masses.
While eulogising former
Governor Lateef Jakande for his development of Lagos State during his
tenure, he said it was shameful that in Lagos the water being provided
for the residents of the state was a World Bank project, adding that it
had not even reached the people.
He said this was the reason for
the proliferation of boreholes which is not also safe. “Close to 35
percent of ailments in Nigeria are water borne,” he said while asking
the government to cut the cost of governance, reform the Nigerian Police
and act on the NEITI report on the crude oil management.
—Eromosele Ebhomele
Source: PM news
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