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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Politics / I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi (27431 Views)
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I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by HomelandRealty: 8:15am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Professor of Political Economy and Management expert, Pat Utomi, shares his thoughts on the state of the country’s economy, politics and other issues in this interview with JESUSEGUN ALAGBE. http://punchng.com/dont-know-buhari-ive-stopped-advising-people-pat-utomi/ 8 Likes 2 Shares
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Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by favouriteYSF(m): 8:23am On Aug 13, 2016 |
O boy, ftc for the first time Dedicating this to my handsome boy @precious And to the topic 11 Likes
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Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by Paperwhite(m): 8:54am On Aug 13, 2016 |
It's a big shame that a reputable person of Utomi's caliber will initial stoop so low to support a Buhari's candidacy despite being fully aware of his antecedents.Now the man have ascended up there but none of them matters to him anymore.Moral-never support a tyrant blindly as a Leopard never change it skin. 141 Likes 7 Shares |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by MONITZ: 8:57am On Aug 13, 2016 |
"Pat Utomi is empty and a noise maker".......General Cassandra. 44 Likes 3 Shares |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by blackpanda: 9:04am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Sorry sir, but it apppears to me that u were talking rather than communicating. I cant pick one specific thing u have said for or against this administration. So transition was terrible, how ![]() So sir Utomi, u have said absolutely nothing. Thanks 41 Likes 6 Shares |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by 989900: 9:18am On Aug 13, 2016 |
I hate sensationalism. The Prof. has made very important points here (and I have not agreed with him much lately), and all whoever put this together can come up with, is to conjure this sh!t.ty headline? ![]() ![]() 22 Likes 1 Share |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by HomelandRealty: 9:20am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Are you considering doing that? . Well, I don’t know, but it is a very important subject that we need to deal with. It has been part of the failure in Africa. . In July, President Buhari said he was averse to including the private sector players in his economic team because they were used to exploiting government policies for their selfish interests. What’s your view on the President’s statement? I agree completely with the President. You cannot have a former government’s economic team making policies that are going to affect your play. That is not proper. It almost amounted to insider trading. It’s wrong both morally and in terms of decision processing for the former economic team to include private sector actors. It’s like an actor making policies for and regulating himself. I think that’s what the President meant in that sense. But that doesn’t mean there should not be structures in place for consulting with the private sector. Their input is important. I keep reverting to one of Africa’s best examples. It’s a country called Mauritius. The discussions at their Chamber of Commerce are even more important than the discussions at their Parliament because once the Chamber of Commerce takes a position on something; the government almost automatically takes a position with them. That is why Mauritius is prospering. Consulting with the private sector is important, but having economic players in the economic team is like self regulation and that is not proper. However, I think the conversation is missing the real point. The whole thing that (former President Goodluck) Jonathan did with some private sector players like Aliko Dangote and others; that was unacceptable, that was wrong. However, we need people with private sector knowledge (but who are no longer in the private sector) to be in the policy team. For instance, the US Treasurer is usually somebody who once worked in Wall Street and then goes back to Wall Street after spending about two years in the position because their time is so valuable. I think we are not getting the proper conversation going on in Nigeria. . Due to high interest rate, inflation, scarcity of forex and other factors, many Small and Medium Enterprises have been pushed out of the system. Do you think the present administration is getting its economic policies right? . But you see, if SMEs are really SMEs, their transactions should not be dollar-based. Why many of them are out is because we don’t have an economy that produces and so what we have is a chain of rent-seeking behaviour. This guy seeks rent from doing government’s contracts and then sets up a supply company to extract the rent from him; that is the kind of economy we have. Our model, sadly, is exactly like that of Venezuela. . …which is in deep economic crisis now . Venezuela has always been in crisis. This is the country that has the biggest deposit of crude oil in the world but cannot provide basic services and Nigeria has been imitating Venezuela continuously. I have been saying this for years. Let’s look at other countries with bigger problems that have struggled better. Look at Indonesia, an oil-producing country like us. Let me tell two stories about Indonesia, hoping we can learn lessons. Some years ago, Peter Lewis, a friend of mine who is a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University, U.S. (where I also have a permanent seat), wrote an interesting book called “Growing Apart.” The book is a comparison of Nigeria and Indonesia. In the early 60s, people used to say to Indonesia, ‘We wish you could be like Nigeria.’ But in the early 90s, people used to say to Nigeria, ‘We wish you could be like Indonesia.’ These two countries have always been referred to as “development twins.” I used to talk about these things such that when Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi was appointed by the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime as the Minister of National Planning and Development, he was the head of the Nigerian delegation to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. He once went to an OPEC meeting in 1998 and when he came back, he couldn’t wait to get hold of me. He said, ‘Pat, now I understand what you’ve been talking about.’ I asked him what that was all about. He said when they got to the meeting (it was during one of those periods of economic crisis when oil price was low like we have now, but much worse, around $9 per barrel), every member country was talking and shouting that their quota must increase. He told me that as the meeting was going on and everybody was shouting, he noticed that the Indonesian oil minister was just quiet and feeling like, ‘Why are these people shouting and disturbing me? Can we get to more serious conversations?’ Chief Gbadamosi said the Indonesian minister just wasn’t engaging in the conversation. He then went to the man and asked, ‘Are you people not bothered? Don’t you want better quota?’ He said the man just laughed at him and said, ‘It’s you Nigerians who don’t know what you are doing. We don’t depend on oil money. We are making more money from gas than from crude oil and you Nigerians started before us in that direction.’ Another story I want to tell about Indonesia is from one of my visits to the country in 1997. It is a country that is said to have a terrible history of corruption. My host was a former oil minister of the country, Prof. Mohammed Sadli. He’s dead now. This man was living in a bungalow without air-conditioner; meanwhile, Jakarta, their capital, is hotter than Lagos. As we sat in his living room and fans were blowing, this man’s favourite subject matter was ethics. I thought to myself, ‘Imagine a former oil minister of Nigeria living in a bungalow without air-conditioner, just imagine what people will be saying about him.’ But you see, in the middle of the big corruption in Indonesia, President (Mohammad) Suharto was able to put together a team of PhDs in Economics, who were mainly graduates of the University of California, Berkeley, U.S. — who were widely known as “The Berkeley Mafia.” Many of the people in the team offered themselves selflessly to redeem their country, which is why now a country that was used to be asked, ‘Can’t you be like Nigeria?’ has done far better than Nigeria. Nigeria is now being asked, ‘Can’t you be like Indonesia?’ There is a pool of such talented Nigerians who are given to selfless service, knowing that just out of the quality of their mind and education, there are more important things in life than the size of their bank accounts. It’s not because they are stupid or anything, but they just want to see things become better. If we are sensible enough, we should have seen it by now. Look at all the guys splashing money like 10 years ago, I know where many of them are now. The failure of leadership in Nigeria is the failure to do what Indonesia did. We should find the kind of people that Indonesia found and let them redeem this country. Even though President Suharto was busy making money for himself, he knew where his country had to go and he found the people who took his country there. . And that’s what President Buhari should do right now? . I don’t know what he should do. I have given up on advising people. I just want to become a farmer and see if I can produce something. . Recently, the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, said Nigeria was technically in recession. As an entrepreneur, how do we navigate through this period? . As they say, when you look at a cup, it can either be half-full or half-empty. A recession is an opportunity. I have a favourite story in this regard of the Great Depression in the U.S (1929-39). During the course of that depression, there was a gentleman called (John Richard) Simplot. He observed that when things were bad — when people who had skyscrapers were jumping to their death — most people wouldn’t be eating what they used to eat because they wouldn’t be able to afford it any longer. Instead of eating expensive meals, they would probably be looking for cheaper food. So he asked himself, ‘What is the inferior food that can now be turned into an attractive one?’ Back then, many people hated potatoes, they considered it a poor people’s food. They used to say it was a trashy food. Meanwhile, potatoes were growing in the wild in the Idaho area of the country. Literally, you could buy a truckload of potatoes for just $1. So Simplot said to himself that potatoes would be the kind of food many would come to embrace because they didn’t have money again. But then, potatoes had such a bad reputation for being cheap that people were ashamed of being seen eating them. What did he do? The first thing he did was to think that if he was going to start marketing potatoes to people, he needed to find out how to store them because they were just rotten everywhere, just like in Nigeria where many farm produce end up in the trash. He then made some researches on how to preserve potatoes and he found out that they were one of the easiest foods to preserve. All he had to do was remove the water from them — that is, dehydrate them — and they would still retain their properties. If six months later you want to fry them, just put them back in water, and they will come up again. Simplot then began to slice them up and since potatoes had such a bad image, he wanted to change the image. He then fried all the slices and didn’t call them potatoes. He called them “French fries.” People fell in love with the French fries instantly. Afterward, fortunes smiled on him because he ran into a guy called Ray Kroc who founded a company called McDonald’s. They came into partnership and every time customers bought hamburgers, they would also buy French fries and Simplot became a billionaire in the process (worth $3.6bn before his death in 2008) — in the middle of a recession. So we shouldn’t see our recession as a frightening moment, but as an opportunity to get Nigeria to begin to produce again. That is why I’m passionate about agriculture now because that is the future. There are other areas we can begin to look into to sell. We can sell culture, which is one area we have been excelling. Our films and music are selling. We can sell our culture much better than we sell crude oil. We have talked a lot about our agricultural value chain. My favourite example always is rubber. Why would you manufacture a car in Nigeria where you won’t be competitive? Take rubber for example where Nigeria once had the best yield per hectare. This was a presentation I made at the Nigeria Economic Summit in 1993. Take the rubber and become its best producer in the world and export it, knowing that it is one of the most important components of manufacturing a car. We will probably be making more money from it than from crude oil. . As an entrepreneur, how many books do you read in a year? . I don’t count them on an annual basis, but I read as many as I can. On average, I read a book per week. Anytime I’m in the car, I pick up a book and read. I could read two books simultaneously. . You were once a presidential candidate. Have you given up on your ambition? . I’ve never had an ambition. In fact, I dislike the word. Ambition is like you are pursuing something by all means. I have no interest in any ambition. But I am a citizen and I have a duty to my children and to my fellow citizens to be part of showing a direction. If that involves having to run for office, fine. If being a farmer makes me deliver better, it’s also good. If being a teacher makes me deliver better, that’s also good. Whatever works, I will do. 20 Likes 1 Share |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by babyfaceafrica: 9:35am On Aug 13, 2016 |
I like this man..very sincere and thorough!!! 18 Likes 1 Share |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by Tochex101(m): 9:50am On Aug 13, 2016 |
An insightful read. 2 Likes |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by thesicilian: 10:21am On Aug 13, 2016 |
989900:Newspaper houses are all about selling, they will leave out all the valid points made by a respondent and instead use the most outrageous statement which was probably said in passing, to caption the whole narrative. Its how they get their daily bread. And as it turns out, many of our Nigerian youths are impatient readers, they formulate their entire opinion based on the headline alone. Its a sad situation. 24 Likes 3 Shares |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by Nobody: 10:39am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Epic ![]() |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by northvietnam(m): 10:39am On Aug 13, 2016 |
2 Likes |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by veekid(m): 10:39am On Aug 13, 2016 |
He should just resign |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by Flashh: 10:39am On Aug 13, 2016 |
![]() ![]() 1 Like |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by DifferentBoy1(m): 10:40am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by VocalWalls: 10:40am On Aug 13, 2016 |
there's no point advising buhari... anyone who does so is wasting his time because Buhari would not listen. Instead, they'll throw the blames back to the citizens and 'challenge' us to make nigeria better. As if we're the ones that made promises during elections. Stop Buying Toxic Air-Fresheners 2 Likes |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by Kingspin(m): 10:41am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Nigerians are looking for a fresh/modern ideas in an old man skull. |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by Flyingngel(m): 10:41am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Ok |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by chrisxxx(m): 10:42am On Aug 13, 2016 |
All of u and Ur kinds that lost Ur voice since Jonathan exited power we are watching. U can't criticise again because u know the no-nonsense approach of Buhari to criticism. 1 Like 1 Share |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by Nobody: 10:42am On Aug 13, 2016 |
It is well ![]() |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by IDmina10: 10:42am On Aug 13, 2016 |
everybody confuse o |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by emmyid(m): 10:42am On Aug 13, 2016 |
I'm way too busy right now to read this lengthy conversation. But from the title, the only advise one could ever offer to Buhari is for him to step down, go back to Daura or wherever he comes from and take care of his hut and the cows he inherited from his grand mom. Hence, he loves cow more than humans.... Gen. Cassandra, hope this helps! 3 Likes 1 Share |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by otukpo(f): 10:43am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Ok. We have heard. |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by legendte(m): 10:44am On Aug 13, 2016 |
The Dullard-inho don provoke goats. Owners seldom eat plantains and bananas to give them the peel because of the inflation. 5 Likes
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Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by Kaybee14(m): 10:44am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Food for thought. |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by BankManager(m): 10:44am On Aug 13, 2016 |
It was a gross mistake to think Buhari was the way forward.. 1 Like |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by hajilawal: 10:44am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Hm God help us 1 Like 1 Share |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by Landloard01(m): 10:44am On Aug 13, 2016 |
[size=14pt]Can someone tell me why the headline does not match the information here? ![]() 13 Likes
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Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by ifyalways(f): 10:45am On Aug 13, 2016 |
Pat call a spade a spade, biko. Conjectures and fancy words won't change the fact that this far, that una change has turned to Chain. 2 Likes |
Re: I Don’t Know What Buhari Should Do, I’ve Stopped Advising People –pat Utomi by SycophanticGoat: 10:46am On Aug 13, 2016 |
cindyrocks: Please shoot him if possible... ![]() ![]() 5 Likes 1 Share |
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