A POLITICAL economist and economic theorist, Prof Pat Utomi, says Nigerian civil servants and public officials drive the most expensive cars, yet the people struggle to have three square meals in 24 hours.
Utomi said this in an interview monitored by Vanguard at Tony Uranta Memorial lecture held on December 6 in Lagos, revealing that Nigerian leaders had taken no lessons from the heroics of the past.
“I spent my lifetime talking about the South-East Asian miracle. I go there every year. In all those years, I kept giving Singapore examples, but Nigerians sometimes think it’s exotic, so I stopped using Singapore examples to an extent, and I turned to closer examples,” Prof Utomi noted.
“Cairo is in Egypt here. I went to an Afrexim meeting two or three years ago, and I stayed in the same hotel with a group of Nigerian bank MDs, and they had ordered a limo. I think a Toyota Corolla showed up. That was a limo in Egypt for them, and they were so upset. I recall their conversation, and it just struck me about the Nigerian problem.
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“I went to mass this morning, and as I was coming, I saw a number of cars and I thought the same thing you are thinking. Look, the top officials in Egypt will show up in Toyota Corolla and all of that. In Nigeria, the most expensive cars are driven by civil servants, public officials, yet the people can’t eat.”
He said Nigerians had allowed the political class to influence them, noting that which the only thing that mattered to politicians was making money and acquiring SUVs.
“What I see, politicians don’t know how I look at them. When I see the big motorcade, I look at them and say, this is an idiot. The hungry country who can’t spend the resources of our country to do what we need to do to fix it, but our egos are driving us down. I took to more in-depth reflection, and people who have studied these things and I ask, how do societies fail through human history? Why did they get to behave in a particular manner?
“A number of, and I don’t have the time to go into all of it, but a number of things I would suggest people to do is reflecting on Carlo Cipolla’s work on stupidity. Look at the work that has been done on idiots, tribesmen and citizens. What we need to do now is begin to raise citizens. People who, of good conscience, can call their country back and say, look, this way we are going will lead to destruction. It will lead to our anarchy.”
The former presidential adviser urged Nigerians to read Lee Kuan Yew’s book on Third World countries, which would reveal several things remarkable about leadership in Nigeria.
“If you read Lee Kuan Yew’s book on Third World to First World, he said something in Chapter 18. He said, in 1975, he visited Nigeria, met many of the civil servants. They were bright. But the trouble was that they were not able to translate the ideas into action. They were too busy fighting one another for power and the spoils of office.”
Prof Utomi said the result was that Nigeria, with all its oil and wealth and talented people, remained underdeveloped, noting that the book exposed contrasting events between the leaders and the led.
“He further said in that chapter, I have said publicly that in Nigeria government ministers drive Mercedes, but the roads are bad. In Singapore, ministers take the bus or drive modest cars, but the roads are good.
“I wondered where that logic came from, but somehow the country of the big man arose during military rule. Although, again, to be very fair, former Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd), showed a remarkable example. When oil prices took a dip on his first watch, he went down to a Peugeot 504, which was the head of state’s official car.
“Everybody else went below that. I look at what is going on now, and I think if soldiers can be smart enough to realise this, how come elected politicians are doing what they are doing with public resources? And I knew we were in very serious trouble.”
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He wondered how Nigerians would redeem themselves, stressing the need for deep-thinking minds, noting that the nation needed minds capable of questioning how they were governed and how things were being done.
“I mentioned Carlo Cipolla. One of the points that Cipolla makes is that we underestimate how much stupid people dominated the world. He is an economic historian, so he went through economic history of the world, how often the stupid lead to purposeful decision making. And there are so many stupid people who don’t realise it. If you are not a questioning mind, if you don’t think and question every time, the danger of falling into stupidity is very important.”
The way out
However, Prof Utomi said there was always a way out of the quandary, stressing that the amazing thing was that Nigerians were the easiest people to lead.
“Look, let me give you a traffic analogy. I was trying to write a book a couple of years ago to use Lagos traffic as the model for this book. In terms of choice, one of the things I found was that the average driver in Lagos, as crazy as he seems to be, usually starts out wanting to do the right thing. One big man goes through, and everybody goes, and the madness is ballooned. But ordinarily, when you show good examples, Nigerians are so quick to adjust.
“That’s why I say the problem is leadership. All we need are a few leaders who do the right thing, show examples, and you would be surprised what will happen in this country. What we need to do is bring together people who realise that we are in grave danger from what we have done to our country. Let everybody accept that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Let us begin by saying, ‘we will not do this.'”
