By Adeyemi Adeleye
Prof. Pat Utomi, a Nigerian Political Economist on Monday called for strong institutions, reliable systems and values save Nigeria’s democracy and to birth a new Nigeria.

Utomi, the Convener of BIG-TENT, a coalition of Political Parties, Social Movements and Civil Society Organisations for Peter Obi-Baba-Ahmed Datti, made this remark in a statement on Monday in Lagos while assessing the process and outcome of the Feb. 25 and March 18 general elections.

“The push of the strongman for power usually is either pushed back by strong institutions and reliable systems (BVAS, IREV).

“Strong institutions and values remain key therefore to saving Nigeria, and true patriots are obliged to intensify the struggle as we smell freedom from the hard work of Obidients and the Big Tent in 2023.

“Nigeria cannot afford the crisis of legitimacy that comes every election cycle.

“It hurts growth and development and we need to work our institutions to maturity to avoid these negative disruptions,” Utomi, also a management expert said.

According to him, there are many still in shock about Feb. 25 Presidential and National Assembly Elections and March 18 Governorship and House of Assembly elections.

“This is understandable,” Utomi, Founder of Centre for Value in Leadership and former Presidential Candidate said.

Commending Nigerians for uniting to secure the nation under ‘Obidients’ Movement in the build up to elections, Utomi said “the ring of a new Nigeria is possible began to look feasible and light up the country.”

Alleging that the Feb. 25 election results were manipulation, Utomi said that INEC had sold and even oversold the new infallibility of the BVAS/IREV tech system which later failed on election day and gave room for the manipulation.

He said: “It led many who had given up on the value of voting digging up their PVCs. (Permanent Voter Cards)

“When it mattered the system did not just fail, it collapsed; whether it be a glitch or was tampered with, is left for the tribunals and competent Court to establish.

“But I have seen mountains of evidence even going back years to the supply of BVAS machines that suggest a capriciously planned and premeditated effort to doctor elections away from the wish of the people as expressed in their vote.”

According to him, once hope is punctured by the selfishness of a few, confidence collapsed rapidly and reason gave way to bedlam.

The professor added: “All that was needed was for a simple technology to work and all would have heard clearly what the Nigerian people said.

“Whether it be for good or for bad, this candidate or the other, calm would come and the legitimacy needed for governing would have been conferred. But the simple was not possible.

“I called the Feb. 25 moment ‘when we nearly saved and changed Nigeria’.”

Utomi said that between Feb. 25 and March 18 elections things had deteriorated so badly in some states like especially in Lagos, Rivers and Kano, the development, he noted, dimmed the vision of a united hopeful country.

“To understand what happened in those three weeks is to understand why Nations fail and others succeed,” he said.

Emphasing the need to exalt rule of law, Utomi said that an emerging consensus from historians, political scientists and economists was that “institutions separate the success from the failures of the race of progress for the human race.”

He said that INEC failed to deliver on its promise of uploading polling units results by BVAS to IREV which made most people including the foreign elections observers lost confidence in the commission.

Utomi said that if the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, knew anything about Moral Authority of the intellectual, he should have resigned at that point.

The convener said that The Big Tent was satisfied that it gave impetus to the most issues based campaign since the return to Democracy in 1990 policy thrust of the Obi/Datti campaign which were unprecedented in political campaigns in Nigeria.

Utomi, who noted that the group owed what it accomplished to quite a few notables, the support groups and Nigerians at large, thanked former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Ayo Adebayo and Afenifere, Chief EK Clark among others for their vision of a new Nigeria and the courage of their conviction.

“On our front burner right now is returning Nigeria to Democracy, make elections meaningful and providing example of how political parties should be organised,” he said.

Utomi urged that judiciary to punish offenders.
“If this does not happen then the essence of institutions in setting boundaries is gone and we can kiss democracy good bye,” he said. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)
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