Ebere Ndukwu, Gifted Markson
In what can only be described as a masterclass on leadership, lost opportunities, and the untapped potential of the Niger Delta, renowned professor and political economist, Pat Utomi, at the weekend delivered a riveting lecture at the First News 4th Anniversary Public Lecture in Port Harcourt.
Themed “Building the Niger Delta of Our Dream: With or Without Oil,” Utomi’s speech painted a grim picture of the region’s historical leadership failures but also offered a glimmer of hope by outlining a path to recovery through visionary leadership and private sector collaboration.
The event, which was hosted in Port Harcourt, a city with deep historical and personal ties to the speaker, provided Utomi with the platform to reflect on the missed opportunities that have left the Niger Delta stagnating despite its vast natural resources. His connection to the city was evident from the start as he shared a nostalgic yet pointed story.
“My journey to Port Harcourt predates my birth because my grandfather built a house at Bendel Street in 1929,” he revealed, underscoring the deep-rooted bond between his family and the city.
But it wasn’t just a journey into personal history. Utomi’s lecture was a powerful call to action, urging the region’s leaders and citizens alike to wake up from the stupor of complacency and take charge of their future.
Reflecting on past initiatives aimed at developing the region, Utomi shared the inspiring beginnings of the South-South Economic Summit, which was established to drive economic growth in the Niger Delta.
“The governors of the South-South met here in Port Harcourt and decided that each of them should bring three or four leading private sector people from their state for a meeting,” Utomi explained.
At the summit, convened in the early 2000s, the then governors, including Cross River’s Liyel Imoke and Delta’s Emmanuel Uduaghan, sought to institutionalize the process of regional economic cooperation by creating what would become the BRACED Commission, an economic development initiative involving Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, and Delta states. The commission was envisioned as a vehicle for turning the Niger Delta into an economic powerhouse, akin to the European Union’s regional cooperation model.
“We thought we were creating a European Commission-type base for economic development that would be unrivaled anywhere in Nigeria,” Utomi recalled.
However, as Utomi lamented, despite the early promise, the initiative ultimately failed to meet its lofty goals, in part due to the inability of the region’s leaders to cooperate. He pointed out that while the private sector showed up in force, raising nearly half a billion naira for the summit at Tinapa, government officials were more concerned with political infighting and self-indulgence.
“At a point during the meeting at Tinapa, I started looking for the governors, I couldn’t find them… I went there and saw they were all thoroughly drunk on champagne,” Utomi shared with visible frustration. His anecdote served as a metaphor for the broader challenges facing the region: leadership distracted by trivialities while crucial opportunities slipped by.
Utomi’s lecture was not just a recounting of past failures; it was a searing critique of what he described as “mental poverty”—a form of intellectual and moral laziness that has prevented the region from achieving its full potential.
“When I say poverty now, I’m not talking about material poverty; I’m talking about mental poverty. That’s what has crippled us,” he declared, underscoring that the region’s challenges are not just about a lack of resources but a failure of leadership and vision.
The professor, known for his candor and deep insights into Nigeria’s socio-political dynamics, argued that the Niger Delta’s future should not be tied solely to oil.
“We are sitting on what can be described as ‘poverty in plenty,’” he said, echoing a long-standing critique that the region’s abundant oil wealth has not translated into widespread prosperity. Instead, Utomi urged the region to adopt a forward-thinking, diversified economic approach, drawing on other sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, and technology.
He also referenced global examples to show what is possible with the right kind of leadership. One of the most striking comparisons Utomi made was with Singapore, a small island nation that, in 1965, was ejected from its federation with Malaysia and seemed destined for failure.
“Their leader began to weep because there seemed to be no hope for them,” Utomi recounted. But through visionary leadership, Singapore transformed itself from a Third World country to a First World nation in just one generation.
“My vision was that the South-South would flock together to prosperity, just a little vision, nothing extraordinary. But it took one or two unserious people in leadership to poo-poo what everybody else would have done,” he lamented.
Reflecting on the summit at Tinapa, Utomi’s voice carried both pride and sadness. Pride, because the private sector showed what could be done with dedication and a clear vision; sadness, because that vision was eventually squandered.
“We raised from amongst ourselves nearly half a billion naira without asking the government,” he said, emphasizing how the private sector stepped in where the government lagged behind. He described how major banks such as Zenith, Oceanic, and others contributed hundreds of millions to the summit’s success, only for the effort to be derailed by a lack of political will and cooperation.
One of the most profound moments in Utomi’s speech was when he reflected on a presentation he made during the Tinapa summit. Using a storytelling approach, he asked the audience to imagine a future 25 years from that day—a future where a young girl from Cross River would travel on a fast train through a highly industrialized Niger Delta.
“She would say, ‘This area was just a crummy oil-invested place the day I was born, but because of what the leaders did at Tinapa, I am witnessing this transformation,’” Utomi narrated.
It was a vision full of promise, but as Utomi noted, it has remained just that—a vision.
Utomi didn’t hold back from naming the culprits. He placed the blame squarely on the failure of leadership and the petty rivalries that have held the region back.
“The major reason why we didn’t make progress is that about two or three of the governors began to quarrel with one another for no reason,” he revealed, pointing to a tragic tendency for personal egos to override collective good.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Utomi’s lecture also provided a path forward. He urged the region to learn from its past mistakes and to once again embrace the private sector as a partner in development. Citing the example of competitive communalism in the 1950s and 1960s, when Nigeria’s regional leaders competed to outdo each other in development, he highlighted how such competition led to the rapid industrialization of regions like the Western and Eastern regions, where industrial estates sprung up in Lagos and Port Harcourt.
“Between 1957 and 1960, the contribution of industry to GDP was 20%. How does such a thing happen that dramatically? Because there were serious leaders,” Utomi explained.
In his closing remarks, Utomi returned to the theme of leadership, emphasizing that the Niger Delta cannot afford to waste any more time.
“Can we say let us begin again? It is possible to begin anew,” he urged.
He stressed the importance of education and industrialization as the twin pillars upon which any future progress must be built. Drawing on the lessons of leaders like Obafemi Awolowo, who prioritized education and industrialization in the Western region, Utomi made it clear that without serious investment in these areas, the region will continue to flounder.
Utomi’s lecture at the First News Public Lecture was both a sobering reflection on the past and a rallying cry for the future. His critique of “mental poverty” and his call for a new vision to rescue the Niger Delta from the quagmire of underdevelopment resonated deeply with the audience.
As the region grapples with the challenges of a post-oil future, Utomi’s words serve as a timely reminder that visionary leadership, private sector engagement, and a renewed commitment to regional cooperation are the keys to unlocking the Niger Delta’s immense potential.
The question now is whether the leaders and people of the Niger Delta will heed the call to “begin again” or whether the region will continue to drift, weighed down by the very resources that should have been its blessing.
As Utomi said, the time for action is now, and the region must seize this opportunity before it slips away once more.