Pat UtomiRemarks by Prof Pat Utomi, Convener of the Big Tent at the first working meeting of the Big Tent Shadow Cabinet.
Dear Compatriots,
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I welcome you with warmth of heart and trust in the nobility of Intellect humanized by compassion for our fellow citizens, burdened by fear for their lives in a season of insecurity and humiliated by poverty as parents who once took care of their families with dignity but cannot anymore. Yet many of our politicians walk with swag as shame takes flight and decline mocks a once proud people.
This is the burden that has given birth to experimentation with advancing the course of Democracy to make it work for all. Democracy can, with innovation of institutional change, help the agency function better, focus on the best interest of the people, and help outcomes that enable the pursuit of happiness for the greatest number, with its focus on the common good. This is the raison d’être of the shadow government idea, and this shadow cabinet to which all of you in your nobility of spirit have yielded to in agreeing to serve sacrificially. So welcome to a new beginning of concerned citizens, civil society and politicians acting in concert to make power accountable and fresh alternatives available for those who decide in the public interest.
Before we turn to our agenda, a word or two on the storm kicked up by the announcement of this shadow team.
I have become used to hearing the cry: wolf, wolf from APC and their government every time a voice other than those of cheerleaders is heard. But the usual charge of treason and insurrection took on the tone of panic with the shadow cabinet. Among the charges was the constitutionality of the shadow team. The shadow team was said to be derived from the Parliamentary system and our Presidential system from the United States, so they were oil and water, which did not mix.
I have just pointed those who say this to an op-ed piece in the Washington Post by a US congressman from North Carolina proposing a shadow government to keep the Trump administration honest. So much for what is haram in a presidential system.
The real bottom line is that systems must innovate when their reality is tending towards ineffectiveness. Legislators queuing to cross-carpet to the APC are not likely to hold the government accountable. Necessity has become the mother of invention and this shadow cabinet has come to challenge politicians to govern and not just politic from one election to the next, while misery becomes the companion of ordinary Nigerians. The poverty capital of the world faces the moral equivalence of war and should not be governed with the level of lack of seriousness we see in government. Lives of millions are at stake in governing Nigeria. To govern it as is currently the case suggests a deep moral crisis that politicians need to be accountable for. Nigerian lives matter.
The Road Map
Our next four meetings will be dedicated to briefings on the state of MDAs and policy thrusts.
The presentations will be made by responsible shadow team members and noted experts invited on a needs basis.
2. Finalize cabinet committees by June 12. These will include the Security Committee, Economic Growth Committee, and Budget and Fiscal Transfers Committee.
3. Cabinet Retreat by mid-July
4. Complete the code of conduct for members of the shadow team by the middle of July
5. Establish the office of the Ombudsman for citizen complaints by June 30
6. Conclude a plan for Town Hall meetings in the six geopolitical zones of the country.
7. Develop a policy trajectory for parties in coalition for 2027.
Closing
Permit me to wrap up this address of welcome with a small exhortation. Immortality beckons on you who are present here and of this shadow team. To be forever in the thoughts of men is to never die. To reach there requires that we live out a few things, given the current challenged state of the social order in Nigeria.
Our ways must seek to advance the course of social justice.
We have to unwind the divisive path of identity politics, which spreads hate of people perceived to be different, which is the core of the strategy of the present darkness in the land.
We need to advance an order of meritocracy without losing sight of the justice of representative bureaucracy and affirmative action.
Ultimately, our actions should elevate the dignity of the human person and promote human solidarity.
Pat Utomi, Professor of Political Economy and Convener of the Big Tent
