Politicians paying Labour party officials millions to defect from party, says Utomi

A chieftain of the Labour Party (LP), Professor Pat Utomi, has alleged that politicians in some political parties were paying Labour party officials millions of naira to defect to the party.

Utomi stated this on Monday in Abuja at the unveiling of The Big Tent Independent Campaign Council Secretariat, a coalition of support organisations aimed at achieving the presidential ambition of LP candidate, Peter Obi.

The professor of political economy, who is also the chairman of the coalition, blamed politicians for the nation’s woes, noting that the country has failed to build real political parties.

He said the Nigerian youths that are tired of the terrible state of the country discovered the former Anambra governor, adding that the LP will focus on improving the lives of ordinary Nigerians rather than serving the selfish interest of a few powerful elites.

“The focus of power over purpose has led to transactions of nature where people don’t seem to matter. As we speak right now, some of those political parties have been paying millions and millions to labour party officials to decamp but they still forget that what we need is a new Nigeria that our children can live in happily without insecurity”, he stated.

While accusing the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of lacking ideology, Utomi said the party only set out to grab power as its target in 2015.

He assured that if elected, the party’s presidential candidate will move Nigeria from a consuming nation to producing nation.

He stated: Our country needs to be renewed. It is easy to blame anybody for the problems of Nigeria, but it’s time to forge forward, look ahead and forget yesterday. The Naked Truth is that yesterday has been costly, extremely costly. The country that was bequeathed to us by our founding fathers was a great country of promise. I am fond of reminding people of 1960.

“Obi talks all the time about going from consumption to production. But we started in 1960 with production. I like to remind people all the time that our founding fathers looked at their endowments and realised that the main reason Nigeria was colonised was the extraction of raw materials to move to Europe, but the Colonials did not bother or try at all to industrialize Nigeria.

“Indeed, at the time of self-government, there were technically two factories in Nigeria. However, the pace with which the young men and women who began to take charge in 1956/57 and the speed with which they moved us to production were unbelievable. I believe we can still achieve some form of transition.

“Central to the challenge of development that we have is our failure to build real political parties. I believe that was the beginning of the founding of the APC. In the founding of the APC, they focused on grabbing power over purpose which prevented a real political party from emerging and we’ve seen the damages that are done to Nigeria.”