It was Hunter, the blogger on the liberal leaning Daily Kos blog that first opined “I have often wondered how different groups of people can see the exact same thing but come to entirely different conclusions. I’m not talking about the “difference of opinion” things, or the “I disagree on a technicality” things, but the “I reject the very premise of your reality and have built my own version down here in the dank basement of my own mind”

Hunter was writing three days after my piece on the Obama phenomena appeared on nigeriavillagesquare.com. Responding to an LA Times piece on pre war intelligence, he challenged the apparent dual interpretatations of political reality that has plagued the American society.

But Hunter could as easily be writing about Nigeria and Nigerians and our interpretations of political realities. When I wrote “In 2007 Nigeria , We Had Our Obama Moment But Blew It” I was suggesting (rather than making a comparison between the two great individuals) that if progressive Nigerians had rallied round Dr. Utomi’s candidacy the same way liberal Americans did for Barack, we could perhaps have had a moment such as Obama’s to be excited about.

I did not make any attempt to compare the two individuals and I had to go back to the said article to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything remotely close to a comparison between their personalities. But since some have turned the issue to become an attack on Dr. Utomi and a question on his accomplishments; let’s examine the two realities. The realities of what is factual not what some created out of thin air. If fact is our guide, Dr. Pat Utomi has more accomplishments than Barack Obama (save for Barack’s recent status as the Democratic presumptive nominee). I never thought I will be drawn into this kind of argument. I admire Barack’s accomplishment and ever since he came to American national consciousness in 2004, I have supported him in any way that I can. As recently as May 2008, I canvassed for him here in Indianapolis during the primary season.

But since some have chosen to create controversy where there is none, I think it is apt to actually go into the details as we know them. Here is a comparison of Dr. Utomi’s accomplishment and U.S Senator Barack Obama’s.

Barack H Obama

Education: Occidental College

                  Columbia University

                  Harvard Law School

Professional Experience

Director – Developing Communities Project 1985 – 1988

Constitutional law professor – University of Chicago Law School – 1992 – 2004

Director – Illinois project vote! April to October 1992

Associate attorney and later counsel at Davis Miner, Barnhill & Galland

Member – Illinois Senate – 1997 – 2004

Member – United States Senate – 2004 –

Served on several boards, among which are; Public Allies, Woods Fund of Chicago, The Joyce Foundation, The Chicago Annenberg Challenge etc

Patrick O Utomi

Professional EXPERIENCE

· Vice - Chair -  Bank PHB Nigeria PLC

· Chair, Corporate Finance Group (CFG)

· Chair, Finacorp Building Society

· Chair, BusinessDay Media Ltd (Publishers of BusinessDay newspapers)

· Chair, Vivante Media Enterprises (Host of Radio and Television news feature/Talk    Show series, Patitos Gang).

· Chairman, Graceland Chocolate Manufacturing Company, Englewood , New Jersey

· Chair/ General Partner, Leapfrog Venture Partners ( Nigeria ’s first Venture Capital Company)

· Director, and Co-founder, Linkserve ( Nigeria ’s first Internet Service Provider)

· Chair, Interactive Data Systems Ltd

· Chair, Wordsmiths (Printing and Packaging Company)

· Director, Contact Marketing Services Ltd

· Director, Gilt Bond Investments

· Chair, OK Computers Limited

· Chair, Bompac Limited

· Director, Computerage Nigeria Ltd  - ( Nigeria Master Franchise Holder)

ASSOCIATIONS

POLICY ASSIGNMENTS

· Select participant at the Biannual Conference of the Aspen Institute, France (Europe-Africa summit)

· Chair, Presidential Panel for developing a National Integrity System

· Chair, Presidential Panel for Restructuring Agencies of Integrity and Transparency for the Federal Republic of Nigeria

· Served as Secretary and later as Acting Chair, Economic Advisory Team for candidate Olusegun Obasanjo in the run-up to the 1999 Presidential election.

· Served on the Governance Committee of the transition council of President-elect Olusegun Obasanjo, PPRAC

· Chaired the Privatization Committee -then Governor- Elect of Lagos State , Bola Tinubu's transition working group.

· Served on the Privatization Consultative Council for Lagos State .

· Served in USAID team designing and implementing training intervention for elected officials in Nigeria in 1999.

· Served on Advisory Committee to Review JAMB (1999)

· Served as Member, Delta State Think Tank on Development.

· Served on the Steering Committee of the National Council on Privatization for Competition and antitrust

· Served on the National Council on Privatization Steering committee for Pensions Reform.

· Served on the ministerial advisory committee on WTO and Trade Policy.

· Consultant on Strategy for Fountain Trust Merchant Bank.

· Consultant to Citizens International Bank on Managing Change and Organizational Transformation. (1995 - 1997)

· Consultant to the African Development Bank on Corporate Communications Strategy (1986 - 90)

· Consultant to Cadbury Nigeria Plc.

· Consultant to Nigeria Ports Authority on Engineering Change.

· Consultant to National Maritime Authority on Organizational Effectiveness in the Public Sector.

Dr Utomi has served and continues to serve on several boards (both profit and non profit) in Nigeria .

To an impartial mind, Dr. Utomi clearly has more accomplishments than Barack. But what is more important is that these two gentlemen shares similar personal traits. To those who know them, they exude a spirit of neighborliness and a willingness to bring people together. Regardless of the route life has taken them individually, they are known to be very grounded among the average citizens. This comparison that I have undertaken was necessary in order to put things in the proper perspective. It wouldn’t have been necessary if people were not creating a totally nonexistent reality.

The main thrust of my previous submission was that in 2007, Nigeria had an opportunity to rally round a common goal and a great candidate. I believe then as I do now, that the candidate was Dr. Utomi. He couldn’t have done it alone. Some have suggested that Dr. Utomi did not proposed any issues during the campaign, my response is that the fellow was not paying attention or he was away in Siberia . A quick visit to www.patutomi2007.com will refute this allegation. Some also suggested that Utomi entered the race too late, that is further from the truth. The campaign started very early in 2006. Nigeria ’s current president was drafted to run in late 2006, very unprepared and today he is sitting pretty as the leader of the most populous black nation.

One year into Umaru Musa Yar’adua’s administration, he is yet to grasp the complexity of the energy situation and other critical sectors are still in dire straits. This is two years after Dr. Utomi had proposed a comprehensive policy on how to tackle our energy problems.

Some have even suggested despite Utomi’s resume that includes a career in government, academia and business, that he does not possess the experience necessary to lead Nigeria . I say to them, get a grip on reality, he has more experience than most of our previous presidents combined. Not only is he an academic, he understands how jobs come and go (he is an employer of labor). Since when has it become a pre requisite for presidential leadership for one to be a career politician? General Dwight Eisenhower, Prime Minister Berlusconi and a host of others were men that followed other career options but later ended up running two of the most important economies of the world.

And while we are still on political experience, exactly what benefit did G.W.Bush derived from his 7 year experience as Texas governor?

Now, middle class Nigerians are buying Barack’s bumper stickers and contributing to his campaign after the fact. This is after the American people themselves have embraced Barack and his message of hope. Despite Barack’s thin resume (by American standard) he is favored to win the presidency. The netroot nation (a group of grassroot liberal bloggers) were the first to give Barack a boost and they contributed heavily to his campaign.

Back to Dr. Utomi, we are left with only what could have been. And what I said in my previous article was that if progressive Nigerians had shown the same level of support towards one of their own, we could be celebrating an Utomi moment just like the majority of Americans are basking in the euphoria of the Obama moment right now.

Now, I will agree that ADC as a political platform was not very tactical on Dr. Utomi’s part. But I was informed by campaign insiders that it was part of a grand plan that was supposed to eventually merge with other mega parties. ADC I learnt was necessary to serve as an ideas platform to counter what was rightly in Dr. Utomi’s mind a lack of moral leadership by the existing political parties. While his intentions were noble, the politics of it wasn’t very tactical. But what is more important are the actions of other stakeholders, namely Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and former vice president Atiku Abubakar. If these two principal actors had paved the way for Dr. Utomi just like their American counterparts did for Barack (think Richard Durbin, Harry Reid, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, Mayor Richard Daley, Bill Richardson etc) perhaps the outcome of Nigeria ’s 2007 elections could have been different.

But again, my piece was not necessarily revisionist in scope, it was more of a call to arms, more like a rejuvenation of progressive ethos if you will call it that. I challenged we the people to back the dark horse even when it’s not popular to do so and to celebrate excellence when we see one.

2008 America may be politically advanced than 2007 Nigeria but both the Nigerian and the American people want the same things out of life. They want security for themselves, their loved ones and their properties,  they want equal protection under the law, they want an opportunity to earn an honest living, one that creates wealth but also rewards the workers that created it ( to paraphrase Barack Obama). They want good public education for their wards and a cleaner environment that we can pass on to generations to come.

Despite Dr. Utomi’s campaign shortcomings, he has indeed made it clear that progressive Nigerians need not cede the political space to career politicians. It’s over to you and me to build upon what Dr. Utomi has done.

As we approach 2011, let’s organize and coalesce around a common purpose. In order to get the Nigerian project right, progressive/middle class Nigerians ought to be in the driver’s seat of national development.

Robot  # 1 | 05.07.2008 12:46

It was Hunter, the blogger on the liberal leaning Daily Kos blog that first opined “I have ofte...Read the full article.

emenanjo  # 2 | 05.07.2008 14:53

Good research! But I am trying to balance in my head this piece, with that written by Uchenna Osigwe, on Barack Obama and Pat Utomi. I think yours reads like an appropriate response to Igwe's. However, Igwe also made some valid submissions too with some very good comments from Tonsoyo-the Awoist.

Oguguo Yakere  # 3 | 05.07.2008 16:06

Another politically correct article. Granted that Pat deserves all the credit being elucidated here; the question is, what is that to the powers that be in Nigeria and even beyond them to some ordinary citizens. When did we get cured of our national disease that kicks against merit but embraces mediocrity and nepotism. Look at those UMYA has now surrounded himself with in very important positions. Who including this author is sincerely (not pretentiously) committed to dislodging the choke holders of Nigeria as it is now from power? Could Pat Utomi have been nominated in PDP as a presidential candidate? If your answer is "yes" then you don't Nigeria. So how else could Pat have become a presidential candidate if not through the route he took by going through another party that is less Alcaponic (my word) party like PDP. The Nigeria factor both from the power mongers level and even on the level of some of the regular citizens constitute the problem. It is not kosher yet neither is its end in sight, unless........(you know the rest). The comparison should have little to do with (Pat & Obama) as much as it should with Nigeria and America, period.

jibitoye  # 4 | 05.07.2008 16:18

One little thing people tend to forget with the emergence of Barrack Obama is not that he was just a good candidate alone. He went to the drawing board and strategised about picking up the required numbers to defeat an establishment candidate. We will most probably not be talking about Obama now if he had left that "homework" undone. Politics still remains a game of numbers (this is moreso a complicated idea with our peculiar electoral challenges). This is where regardless of the academic or professional or whatever attribute of any aspirant in a political contest, they will rather not go far without this "homework" done. I would definitely not take anything away from the stature of Prof. Pat Utomi. His candidacy is one that was light years ahead of its time a la Nigerian politics. The average voter in Nigeria is very desensitised to engage in an "issues-based" political contest as we speak (which is why amala politics could unbelievably survive in a rather cosmopolitan Ibadan). We still need to go back to the drawing board to educate our citizenry on this. Until we do this, whenever we have a candidate in the frame of Pat Utomi, it will remain a dream to have an "Obama" moment. Just like someone just mentioned Nigeria is not America...we all wish she were comparably so.

aguabata  # 5 | 05.07.2008 16:23

I found out that a lot of nigerians didnt support Utomi because they dont trust his strength not intellect to run nigeria, strength in Nigerian terms means handling the cabal that run nigeria. It's a risk we should have taken instead of supporting the status quo, meanwhile none of my friends voted for yardua I wonder the kind of people that did?

igwe  # 6 | 05.07.2008 17:15

Hello Abdulmumuni Yinka Ajia, The moment you declared that Nigeria had its Obama moment in 2007 and blew it, and then went ahead to talk of the Utomi candidacy, if that wasn't a comparison, I wonder what is. Your article is long on rhetoric and short on substance. I purposely used both the Abiola and Einstein cases to pinpoint what went wrong with the Utomi candidacy, a fact I made clear I really wished was otherwise. Abiola was CEO, Chairman, Founder, Organizer, Patron, Consultant, etc, etc, of one thousand and one ventures. But that "experience" actually failed to prepare him to master the strategic part of getting and keeping political power. Einstein was right when he said he was too naive for politics. Even comparing Abiola and Einstein to Utomi was being unfair to both but I did it for the sake of argument. Einstein had the power thrust to him and he wisely refused it. In the case of Abiola, he was already a household name by the time he ran for president. You mentioned General Dwight Eisenhower and PM Berlusconi who won elections even though they were not career politicians. But isn't that the point? They won. And to win, one has to know how to win. If Utomi had won, we won't be doing this postmortem would we? You also forgot to add Colin Powell who also had a very good chance of at least becoming the Republican nominee in 2000--earlier he was courted by the Clinton administration. What these people had in common was that they captured the attention of their fellow citizens in many positive ways. Can you say that of Utomi, or even of Gani? We can continue to spin around the issue, wish that things (or Nigeria) were different, and proceed to argue in circles, but the gargantuan task is still before us. As jibitoye rightly said, we need to do our homework not only properly, but brilliantly. Progressives didn't rally round Barack Obama because he was Barack Obama. They rallied round him because he was successful in selling himself to them. Before he announced his candidacy, he formed an exploratory committee. Bill Clinton recently revealed that he came one day close to announcing his candidacy in 1988 but had to shelve it for strategic reasons. Such projects take years, even decades, to really take off. If Utomi, as you hinted, was in strategic talks with people like Tinubu and Atiku, what happened to that plan, if it was real? Or more precisely, what is happening to that plan now? As the Japanese would say, "Good thinking, good product". In this case I'd add, Good thinking and hard work, good product. We need to be honest with ourselves in order to identify what went wrong with both the thinking and the hard work as it relates to the Utomi candidacy so we don't repeat the same mistakes. It's a fact that the Utomi candidacy failed woefully. But real problem is not falling down but not getting up after the fall. Abraham Lincoln failed many times in his bid to become the president of his country. But he got up each time and never made one mistake twice. Gani made the mistake in 2003 and Utomi repeated it in 2007. It's my sincere hope that we don't continue making the same mistake and expect a different result. Ka Chineke mezie okwu!

Oguguo Yakere  # 7 | 05.07.2008 17:36

Igwe, Did you read the input by Jibitoye above? Could you please read it below if you didn't yet. I would definitely not take anything away from the stature of Prof. Pat Utomi. His candidacy is one that was light years ahead of its time a la Nigerian politics. The average voter in Nigeria is very desensitised to engage in an "issues-based" political contest as we speak (which is why amala politics could unbelievably survive in a rather cosmopolitan Ibadan). We still need to go back to the drawing board to educate our citizenry on this. Until we do this, whenever we have a candidate in the frame of Pat Utomi, it will remain a dream to have an "Obama" moment. Just like someone just mentioned Nigeria is not America...we all wish she were comparably so. Then go figure.

akar ninzo  # 8 | 05.07.2008 17:36

You have said it all, he came out in the wrong platform and tell you what, 2006 was very late for him to make an impact just like now that he should start if he really want to make an impact and get people to defend his votes as was done in Edo, Lagos and Bauchi from the ruling PDP

Oguguo Yakere  # 9 | 05.07.2008 21:32

aka ninzo, Igwe and all those in your circle of reasoning; you guys are either PDP apologists or inhabitants of an unknown planet. Your stance on the credibility of what can result from elections in Nigeria under the current cabal of PDP is to say the least oxy*****ic. And guess what, they won't let go on a plater of wood let alone gold. It is your type of midset that gives them the confidence to continue their deeds. They have nothing to fear or worry about. That is how we got UMYA who in turn will begot another shade of himself and the beat will go on with the people suffering and dying while you are "strategizing". Time will tell who is right in all these.

PAPIG  # 10 | 06.07.2008 07:14

One glaring omission, which i would personally rate as fatal, in the extensive resume of Pat Utomi as a presidential material is his lack of alignment or a history of fighting the cause of the under- or working class and the voiceless majority. For your information being an employer of labour is not the same as representing or aligning with the aspiration of labour. His tenure as an adviser to Shehu Shagari speaks volume and i cannot recall him resigning when the ship of the state was being run aground by the then thieving cabal called NPN. The credible options of the Nigerian progressives for an Obama moment include Gani Fawehinmi, Balarabe Musa or Adams Oshiomhole. There is a befitting role for erudite scholar and personalities like Pat Utomi - a foreign affairs spokesperson.

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