Utomi: I’ve had talks with Atiku, Obi, Kwankwaso over formation of new party

Pat Utomi, a professor of political economy, says he has held talks with Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso over the possibility of forming a new political party that would give the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) a run for its money. 

Utomi spoke on Wednesday on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme.

Abubakar, Obi and Kwankwaso were the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) respectively in the 2023 elections.

Utomi is also a chieftain of the LP.

He said the new party, if formed, will be a clean start, with ideas and a clear agenda, adding that since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, there has not been a real political party in the country.

“I talked to several of the presidential candidates in the last election about this track we are traveling,” Utomi said.

“I have had conversations with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, I have had conversations with Engineer Rabiu Kwankwaso, I have had conversations with Peter Gregory Obi and people like Ralph Okey Nwosu of ADC and some of the people who probably constitute the base.

“I had said to them, it is not about you, it is about Nigeria, it is about the ordinary people in the street, it is about truly moving from this business of sharing from trickles of oil sales to how we can become one of the most productive economies.

“It is actually a clean start. You have to start from the premise that Nigeria has not had a political party since 1999 and let’s be very honest with ourselves, what we have managed is to create platforms that enable machine politics from which to grab power usually for the purposes of state capture.

“We want to calm down now, design a real political party with clear ideas of how you will become part of it, what you will do in it and therefore you accept to do or not to do before you come into it.

“It is where there will be clear agenda, a party plan that the day you arrive in office, everybody from permanent secretary to level 8 officer know what to do every day to move Nigeria to a certain level.

“You don’t do it, you get fired.”