“Corruption Worse Under Buhari’s Government Than 10 Years Ago” – Professor Pat Utomi

A professor of political economy and management, Pat Utomi says that corruption is worse in this present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari than ten years ago.

Professor Utomi said this during a recent interview with The Nation, where he alleged that the change promised by President Buhari-led government was not working.

Utomi was quoted as saying: “Sadly, even though our mantra ‘is if Nigeria does not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria,’ I believe by my experience as a businessman that there is worst corruption today in the country than there was 10 years ago.

“So the corruption in the environment also adds to the challenge of investing.

“So there is a need for serious conversation about whether we want the Nigerian economy to grow and what it will take to grow it so that there will be consensus and people will therefore act properly relating to that consensus agreed to.

“If that is to happen, we need to have a national strategy. Whenever I talk about this, people will object to it, talking about this medium term economic recovery plan, but that is not a national strategy; it is a short to medium term recovery programme.

“The national strategy should be what Nigeria wants to lead the world in by 30 years to come. What it means therefore is to take some value chains, most likely looking into the agriculture endowment of the country.

“When you take this endowment, you decide that we want to become the world’s leading suppliers of sausage derivatives, so that when you think of hamburger, you think of Nigeria because over 60 percent of the inputs come from Nigeria for the next 15 t0 20 years.”