Why Nigeria is not making progress – Pat Utomi

Political economist and management expert, Prof. Patrick Utomi, on Monday said “the government in Nigeria is dominating and suffocating.”

This, he said, was responsible for the lack of progress in the nation.

Utomi said this in Abuja at the High Level Public-Private Sector Forum, hosted by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and Solidarity Center, which was themed “Democracy that Delivers”.

He said in a speech that “the government is so dominating and suffocating in Nigeria and in my view it’s part of the reason why Nigeria hasn’t made progress.

“In Nigeria, there is an obsession with the government; the people believe that the government will fix things, that the government can do things, not knowing how important it is that we consider together political enterprise and human progress.

“One of the most frustrating things about Nigeria today is that most of those in public offices don’t have the capacity for where they are. There is no talent profile to determine who should be where.

“Most of them don’t have the foggiest clue what it takes to provide the environment to make the country prosperous.

“If we are going to make progress in Nigeria, we will have to create an enabling environment in which the private sector, public sector, and CSOs can collaborate to make a number of things happen.”