Nigerians Do Not Take INEC Seriously Again – Pat Utomi

Political Economist, Prof. Pat Utomi, has said politics has weakened the institutions in the country.

Utomi lamented that nobody takes the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seriously anymore.

The economist shared his reservations during his speech at the premier conclave of the new tribe of Patriots for the Nigerian Restoration, in Abuja, on Wednesday.

Utomi noted that Nigeria needs strong institutions now more than ever before because the nation is in the depths of a national crisis.

He explained that the weakening of the country’s institutions, coupled with the collapse of shared values, has dealt a huge blow on the quest to build a better Nigeria.

He argued that values shape human progress just as strong institutions remain critical to the growth of any society.

Utomi said, “Politics has further weakened our institutions, no one takes INEC as an institution seriously anymore. Institutions are critical to the growth of any society, values shape human progress.

“No normal Nigerian is in doubt that we are in the depths of a national crisis. Some may come to an interpretation of the crisis from prisms shaped by partisanship or where the divergence stoked by the dichotomy of Emotion and Reason has created chasms of gaps between ‘us and them’.

“It is not my purpose to probe into those now but rather to recognize the universal frustration among Nigerians and their friends of Nigeria with the state of the country.

“Whether it be in the state of insecurity that spares no part of the country, or in the poverty that ravages the land of a people whose factor endowments aggressively wave signals of potential prosperity, it is a time of pain for all.

“If I look from the angle of the toxic politics of the times, weak and failing institutions, and collapse of culture that benchmark the generation, an even great anguish of distress is proclaimed by both the strong and the weak, the poor and the rich, and even the committed and despondent waiting to Japa.”