Nigeria Content Online

Nigeria will
develop more rapidly if our leaders appoint the right people to
political offices, a former presidential aspirant and leader of mega
party, Pat Utomi said yesterday in Lagos.

Receiving an award
of excellence from the Igbo Studies Association of the United States of
America in his office yesterday, Mr. Utomi recalled how late president
Umar Yar’Adua shunned his advice to appoint credible and resourceful
people into his cabinet.

“He actually asked
me to send him a list of such people. I did, but nothing happened when
he reshuffled his cabinet,” he said. “Let me tell you a private
conversation that I had with President Yar’Adua in March last year. He
invited me to come and give my input, my advice on certain things and I
basically said to him, you know, what you need is to find seven to ten
capable people who have commitment. They are not hungry, they are not
looking to award contract, they just want a place in history.

People who have knowledge, they have a sense of service and they are passionate about the area you assigned them.

“Give them the
critical drivers ministry, then you can give whatever’s remaining to
the PDP. And let the world know that this seven to ten people have your
ears and that you are supportive of the thrust of their activities and
this country will be transformed in a few short years.”

Mr. Utomi charged
political office holders in the country to see the opportunity to serve
as sacred means towards the achievement of a future for the country.
According to him, Nigeria has relegated its brightest to the background
and installed the greedy ones at its helms.

Wanted INEC chairman

Mr. Utomi also
said that though appointing an INEC chairman is almost like appointing
any political office holder, two important things should be considered.
“If you have capacity, character, then with a job like INEC, you need
distance to the contesting force,” he said. “When there has not been
enough distance, then you take somebody who is close to AC or you take
somebody who is close to PDP. Even if the person does a good job there
would be the appearance of closeness and that is enough to create a
lot.”

He said there is
nothing more important than a sense of where you are going. “You have a
sense of where you are going and you then find the most capable people
relative to the sense of where you are going. The truth of the matter
is that they will keep a chord that will lead to rapid transformation.”

The representative
of the Igbo Studies Association, Williams Obiozor, an assistant
Professor at the University of Bloomsburg, said Mr. Utomi has
consistently partaken in the activities of Nigerians in Diaspora and
has remained a source of inspiration to members of the group.

“We brought the
award to Nigeria for him because he could not wait to receive his
plaque after he delivered a lecture during our last annual conference
in United States,” he said.