Utomi, a member of the Labour Party, has been at the vanguard of forming a strong and united force to wrest power from the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The former presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) had revealed last weekend that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 elections, Atiku Abubakar, his counterparts in the Labour Party and the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Peter Obi and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, had agreed to form a mega party to wrest power from the APC.
His revelation was laughed off by the APC through its Deputy National Organising Secretary, Nze Chidi Duru, who said such plans will fail.
Reacting to APC’s response, Utomi on Tuesday said the “response itself is much evidence of progress. That a cultured person like Duru reacted rather than the typical Joseph Goebbels propaganda abusiveness the APC is known for shows rational public conversation may become possible in the Nigerian public sphere. Juergen Habermas would have smiled at that.
“To clarify, what I have been speaking to is not the hurried coupling together of interests to create a platform for machine politics like the Daley machine in Chicago to obtain desired elections outcomes and foist state capture on a weary people.
“That is what came out of the 2014 effort that birthed the APC. I was witness to it and have written the first book of a trilogy on that national tragedy,” Utomi said.
He further explained that, “What I have been speaking to is the founding of a real political party. This is something that has eluded this fourth republic.
“Then we will develop shared values around the approach to a people’s centred political party.”
The political economist said, “Next will be a structure for community based solutions to the personal troubles of people and flow of what the people want into the policy process.
“When agreement is reached on National Strategy which from my agenda setting position will be moving the country away from elite rent seeking and mindless corruption to production on value chains erected on our regional factor endowments in which we have latent comparative advantage.
“The major issues we adopt such as constitutional reforms and the emphasising the principle of subsidiarity and bottom up people’s entrepreneurial capitalism will be agreed to before people sign up for leadership roles.
“Can old gladiators I have called out previously have a role. If they do a mea culpa and accept that this is about Nigeria and not themselves there will be room for embrace,” Utomi added.
He stressed a notable example explaining that, “I like to point to the Malaysia feud between Dr Mahathir Mohammed and Anwar Ibrahim who was his Deputy in 1997. This led to imprisonment and much bad blood.
“But when a very bad and corrupt government came up decades later Mahathir Mohammed as a Nonagenarian came out of retirement, founded a new party and in partnership with Anwar Ibrahim and won the election against the incumbent Najib Razak.
“We are confident that through our efforts in this initiative Nigeria will rise up again,” Utomi said.