Founder of Centre for Value in Leadership and the African Democratic Congress, Professor Patrick Utomi, has said election periods are meant to empower the people to vote in leaders who understand them, share their feelings, and fully represent their interests. However, in Nigeria, the people seem to be limited to moving from one problem after another every four years.
Utomi who stated these at the 26th Annual Pre-Ramadan Lecture organised by the University of Lagos Muslim Alumni, describe politicians in the country as a 'terrible mistake', saying they have have succeeded in bringing the country to its knees, and in a state of permanent crisis.
He also said it was high time the nation prioritised rational conversations to chart a new course.
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| Credit: Mustapha Bulama/Bulama's Cartoons |
“In Nigeria, we don’t have a rational conversation that can help us.
“Nigeria is travelling in the wrong direction. This is really the problem. The gap between us and them is pushed in this emotional pulse.
“We seem to stumble from crisis to crisis. In Nigeria, everything you say that seems to be structured, people dismiss it. They say ‘Na grammar we go chop?’ They forgot that every action starts from a theory. But this anti-intellectual disposition, not thinking make us create mountains in a small manhole and put our country in a state of permanent crisis.
“We seem unable to have a rational conversation. Nigeria politics irritates, annoys me because it is not dealing with issues people are dealing with.
“The calibre of people who became politicians in Nigeria is a terrible mistake for our country. People have travelled from citizenship to idiocy,” Utomi said.