Pat Utomi: I won’t decline if south-east wants me to contest presidency

Pat Utomi, a professor of political economy, says he “would have no problem” if the south-east tips him to run for the presidency in 2023.

With the 2023 general election fast approaching, many observers and stakeholders have been advocating for the presidency to be zoned to the south-east region for, what a few of them described as, “equity, fairness and justice”.

Many presidential hopefuls from the south-east have announced their ambition to that end.

In a chat with Arise TV on Saturday, Utomi said he’d not hesitate to run for the seat if the people of the south-east deem him fit to represent them.

The professor, who is from Igbuzo, an Igbo community in Oshimili North LGA of Delta state, however, added that “office and power have very little attraction to me”.

“If people come to me and say, ‘Look! We have looked at your background. We have looked at your whole life of service, and we think you are the candidate that the Igbo nation needs to offer to Nigeria, I would have no problem with that. But, am I driven by the very fact of position?” he said.

“Look, there are people who have been President in Nigeria, who if you give me their place in history; I would rather never have held any office in Nigeria than be what history would remember them as. So, the fact of office and power has very little attraction to me as a person, but service to transform the lives of people matter to me.”

Last year, Utomi, Usman Bugaje, a former member of the house of representatives, Tunde Adeniran, a former chairmanship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party, and Abdulfatah Ahmed, former governor of Kwara, unveiled a political group, Rescue Nigeria Project (RNP).

Bugaje, RNP national coordinator, had said the group was founded as part of efforts to promote quality leadership in the country.