Pat Utomi to mobilise 7.2m Nigerians for protest against political elite

Utomi

Pat Utomi, professor of political economy, says he is working to mobilise 7.2 million Nigerians to converge on Abuja in protest against Nigeria’s political elite.

Utomi said the protest, tagged “Freedom Converge”, is aimed at reclaiming the country from “entrenched systems of state capture and self-serving leadership”.

Speaking on ‘Breakfast Central’, a programme on News Central, Utomi said the protest is necessary because the people’s voices have been suppressed.“The government don’t want people’s voices to be raised and that is why Nigerians have to take back their country,” he said.

“A Catholic bishop in Nsukka, Bishop Onah, is known for a particular homily in which he says ‘a country that the leaders don’t fear their people is as good as dead,’ and that is true.

“The political class now has complete and total contempt for the Nigerian people.”

Utomi said democracy in Nigeria has been eroded by fear and violence, noting that even under military rule, citizens were freer to express themselves.

“Democracy is supposed to be our people raising their voices,” he said.

“Even under military rule, when I was a younger person 50 years ago as an undergraduate, sometimes things will be happening and we’re on the streets demonstrating.

“To find that Nigerians can’t even think — out of fear. Soldiers didn’t shoot Nigerians the way civilians are shooting Nigerians for wanting to express themselves.

“Something has gone fundamentally wrong with that democracy. It cannot be called a democracy anymore and so we need to make it a democracy. Thecable