Professor Pat Utomi has warned that Nigeria’s crisis is not simply a crisis of individuals. It is a crisis of institutions and of the absence of consequences for wrongdoing.
In a public statement, the political economist said the media has a responsibility to interrogate power rather than massage the news. Journalism, he argued, must help citizens understand what those in authority are doing and must demand answers when public trust is abused.
Utomi said electoral institutions must also be protected. Any attempt to undermine the integrity of elections strikes at the foundation of democracy and deserves serious scrutiny and lawful consequences.
He applied the same principle to the judiciary. The rule of law, he said, is central to any modern society. Where judges, lawyers or other actors undermine confidence in the justice system, the appropriate professional and legal institutions must investigate and act according to the law.
Utomi added that where national institutions repeatedly fail to protect citizens, the country must seriously examine the role that credible international mechanisms can play in pursuing accountability for grave abuses of public trust.
He identified consequence management as the deeper problem. When people know that wrongdoing will carry no meaningful consequence, bad behaviour becomes easier to repeat. Nigeria, he said, cannot continue on this path. It needs institutions that work, citizens who remain vigilant, and a system in which public office comes with genuine responsibility and accountability.
Reflecting on the shift from military rule to democratic government, Utomi said what troubles him most is not simply the change in political systems but the decay of leadership itself. The country, he argued, has moved from leaders who, whatever their faults, understood the idea of public service to a political class that too often treats public office as an opportunity for personal enrichment and ostentatious display.
“The boy’s quarters have taken over the main house,” he said.
Utomi criticised the deterioration of education, healthcare and other essential institutions while a small elite displays extraordinary wealth beside Nigerians struggling to survive. Looking closely at Lagos, he said, one can find magnificent mansions standing almost next to communities where people struggle for basic necessities. That level of inequality, he warned, is not sustainable. It is a social powder keg.
The tragedy, he said, is that Nigeria has enormous potential. Potential means little, however, when leadership loses its sense of responsibility, institutions collapse and citizens lose hope. A nation cannot survive indefinitely on the consumption of a few while the many are left behind.
Utomi called for a recovery of the idea that public office is a responsibility to serve, not a licence to loot. Nigeria, he concluded, deserves better than this.
By A.Ikechukwu
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