Utomi dares DSS: I’m coming home, bullet or handcuffs, bring it on
Maureen Aguta
Foremost political economist, politician and Convener of the Big Tent, Professor Pat Utomi, under which a shadow cabinet was recently announced as an alternative government to that of President Bola Tinubu, talked tough recently, including daring the Department of State Services (DSS) to arrest him.
Utomi, Professor of Political Economics, and teacher at the elite Lagos Business School (LBS), who spoke against the backdrop of a suit filed by the Nigerian secret police at a Federal High Court in Abuja, praised Nigeria for rising to the occasion to defend.
Pointing to the groundswell of support to the shadow cabinet, Utomi, who said this would not be the first time he would be challenging despotic governments, citing his headship of a conference to confront Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s former military Head of State, considered to be the most despotic in history, expressed his readiness to die fighting.
His words: “I am heartened by messages of solidarity from across Nigeria on this shadowy business of chasing shadows of shadow cabinets. Reminds me of the Nigeria I used to know. I want to thank everyone. It’s energizing that some want to put together 500 lawyers to defend me against the DSS.”
“It was put as a question: Is this how democracy dies in Nigeria? The answer is in the affirmative. This is how democracy died in Nigeria; where citizens cannot organize themselves to ask questions of their agents. Under Abacha, we brought Nigerians together at St. Leo in Ikeja for a conference on the future of Nigeria.
“I chaired the planning which came out of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria on the watch of then Fr. Kukah and Ehusani. Now for shadowing democracy, hell comes. I will not go into hiding. Where am I? Will arrive on June 12 and head to Abiola’s residence. My hands are primed for handcuffs and if the Aquino treatment from Marcos bullet at the airport is preferred, I submit willingly like a lamb led to slaughter.
“Death is no big deal. 4 of my friends are in the morgue. What is certain is that Tinubu will not escape that same fate. He may have been in London when I faced the assassins under Abacha, and been the supplier to Chief Enahoro and NADECO abroad of reports of my position on matters of the struggle, but we all ultimately go the way of man.
“To the Spirit of Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jnr, Nelson Mandela and the holy watch of St. Thomas Moore, I raise the meaning of being for what is left of my time on this stage. I remember the showman of Science, Carl Sagan, as the NASA orbiter turned its camera to earth for the final time.
“A spec of dust, home to tyrants who have threatened Rivers of Blood; and also to all those we have loved. I am emboldened to chant freedom now. If we die, we die.”