Professor Pat Utomi, a Nigerian economist and politician, has disclosed that the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the Labour Party, LP, the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, in the 2023 general elections have agreed to form a mega party that will challenge the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, come 2027.
Utomi made this known on Sunday, January 14, saying the proposed new political party is not conceived to actualise the presidential ambition of any of the candidates, but it is about Nigeria and the ordinary people on the street.
When asked if Peter Obi, will be the presidential candidate of the new coalition, Utomi said: “No, we’re not talking about candidates now. We’re talking about what the party will look like, the values that the party will stand for, the policies that the party will stand for, and a national strategy.
“I give a small example. In South Africa, up to one level of the African National Congress, ANC, they had conversations about public policy, and all these flows back to pre and post-apartheid era. Who in the APC has an idea what APC is doing, even as one of those who founded it, one of those who wrote the roadmap? I wrote more than 10 letters to the National Chairmen of APC, I never got one single reply, not one.”
Continuing, he said; “What we need are people who sacrificially give up themselves to build a great country with their possible reward being immortality. I’ve had conversations with Atiku Abubakar, I’ve had conversations with Rabiu Kwankwaso, I have had conversations with Peter Obi and the people like Ralph Okey Nwosu of ADC are some of those that would probably constitute some of the base. And I’ve said to them, it’s not about you. It’s about Nigeria, it’s about the ordinary person in this state. It’s about really truly moving from this business of sharing trickles from oil sales to how we can become one of the most productive economies because our (natural) endowments allow that but our politics has not allowed Nigerian people to produce.”
