Political calculations are already ongoing ahead of the 2027 general elections three years away.
There are reports that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP), the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) are planning to form a formidable party that will sack the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a Television interview, a political economist, Professor Pat Utomi, confirms that the parties’ candidates in the 2023 presidential poll have agreed to form a mega party. He also speaks on talks that led to the creation of the APC in 2014 as well as his relationship with President Bola Tinubu.
He said, “What we need are people who sacrificially give up themselves to build a great country with their possible reward being immortality.
“When I talked to several of the presidential candidates in the last run about this track we are travelling. Yes, I’ve had conversations with Atiku Abubakar, I’ve had conversations with Engineer Rabiu Kwankwaso, I have had conversations with Peter Gregory 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. Politicians just go there to grab, grab, grab.
“They don’t even have the discipline to sit down and plan how Nigeria can produce its way out of poverty and everybody can be happy.
“Look at how it is happening in India. As you know, I have very good relations with India. There are friends of mine in India who are struggling to get me to come and sit in India for a few months in the university and do this, do that. But I just feel so what’s wrong with the Nigerian elite? Why are we satisfied with nothing? And then they will try and rationalise it by saying now I’m talking theory, what nonsense, what nonsense, how many of them have had the kind of jobs that I have had as an executive, as a manager, as an entrepreneur? And you say I’m talking theory. Do you know that there is no practice, that makes sense without theory?”
