I will join hardship protest if contacted – Utomi

A political economist and former presidential candidate, Prof Pat Utomi, shares his thoughts with DANIEL AYANTOYE about the recent allegations of sponsoring the planned August 1 protest, among other national issues

The situation in the country has become worrisome. What is your take on the recent developments?

It shows the lack of talent in the political class. They are watching a country crash in their hands and feet by not making the right political choices. It is sad and pitiful that they have not demonstrated skills of nation-building. The state is operating like a captured state. The legislature and the judiciary have been captured.

The people are frustrated and angry while the government is initiating policies that are inchoate, inarticulate, and not addressing the people’s problems. I don’t think I can remember how long ago Nigeria was in this bad a state.

Due to the state of the country, some Nigerians are planning a nationwide protest, which has been scheduled for August 1. What is your take on the proposed protest?

Who are the people planning it? Because I really would like to know who are the people planning it. Can you tell me? They are faceless and they have not been unmasked. I cannot comment on faceless people. How do we know they have a plan if we don’t know who they are? I have been in many protests in my life and my face has never been hidden. I have been at the forefront of it. My first major protest was in 1973-74 at Nsukka. We carried out a coup against the student union leadership. The summit of the protest was on my birthday, February 6, 1974. But I didn’t remember it was my birthday because we had been protesting a day before. It was at about 8.30 pm when we were debating based on the approval of the vice-chancellor. We were in the hall and somebody was making a speech and said, today is February 6th, 1974, and I remembered it was my birthday at about 8.30 pm. Also, during the ‘Ali Must Go’ protest, I was a youth corper and my place in Surulere was the rallying place for the ‘Ali Must Go’ guys because I lived very close to Gani Fawehinmi chambers.

It was from my place they would group and go and see Gani Fawehinmi. That’s why he (Fawehinmi) respected me so much until his death. In fact, in the last few weeks, one of my children went to greet him and he asked them; ‘Can you fill your father’s shoes? Do you know that your father is a giant amongst men?’ He wrote it in a copy of the book he gave my son. So, starting from ‘Ali Must Go’, Babangida and the June 12 struggles, I am a living history. I rallied the professionals and we began to protest. I was physically assaulted by the police twice during those protests in 1993-1994. One was in front of Western House and another was in front of St. Paul, Ajele. If I see that something is wrong, I don’t wait. When Muritala (Muhammed) was assassinated, as student leaders, we were on the streets before we knew who was responsible for the coup. We didn’t even know whether the coup had failed or not when we started protesting it. Protest is not new and it’s the way that political action galvanises citizens. But this is one (protest) organised by people who are not known; it is strange to me. If I want to protest tomorrow, I will start organising people and I will be the first person to champion it. As you know, I have been out of the country. I have been a policy fellow in Washington for some months now.

But the aide to President Bola Tinubu, Bayo Onanuga, accused you and the supporters of Peter Obi of being behind the August 1 planned nationwide protest. How true is this?

How can you wake up as an old man and invent things that don’t exist, and start talking about it?

Are you saying you are not in support of the nationwide protest?

How can I support or not support it when I don’t know about it? I don’t know if it is true. I don’t know if Bayo Onanuga is inventing it to create sympathy or panic. I have no clue. As I say, if it is a demonstration, I am willing to come out but I don’t know whether this is an invention of Bayo Onanuga. It could be because of the way they are functioning. They can just create something as a distraction.

You said you would sue Bayo Onanuga for N500bn if he did not withdraw his statement. From the findings, he did not withdraw it. Do you still plan to go ahead with the charges?

Why not? It is my right. I live in the United States and I will sue him in the United States and Nigeria. I will sue the (Bola) Tinubu government because he is their agent. As I said in my release, I am a student of the state in post-colonial Africa. We have seen the decline of the state in Africa, but I have not seen it come down this low that his agents are actually on the prowl, inventing falsehoods.

Why do you think the Tinubu’s administration, despite all promises on the Renewed Hope Agenda, is against the planned protest?

It is against the people because its (agenda) is not real and it was fake from the beginning. Go and check what Kola Abiola said when the process of making June 12 Democracy Day was on. Read and leave it at that. We were the ones on the ground and we put our lives on the line for June 12.

There were court records of assassination attempts against me on June 12. People who were in London eating amala then should not tell us about what happened on June 12, but they have hijacked history and reworked it so that they would be the heroes of June 12.

Those of us who faced bullets from Abacha and police batons have become the marginal of June 12. But it is okay and history will be written properly when the time comes.