A Professor of Political Economy cum chieftain of the Labour Party (LP), Pat Utomi has explained the strategy his party will use to win political positions, especially the presidency in the 2023 general elections.
He spoke during an interview on Channels Television monitored by TNC.
Utomi also said youths of the country will use the next year’s election to change how politicians govern the nation.
The LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi due to his growing popularity among Nigerian youths, has been tipped in some quarters as the likely winner of the next year’s polls.
However, some political analysts argue that Obi, a former governor of Anambra State lack the political structures across the country to win the country’s presidential election.
According to Utomi, while speaking on Obi’s chances said, the recent elections in Africa show that politicians who are popular on social media can win elections.
He cited some recent elections in Africa, adding that Africans, including young Nigerians, are tired of how politicians are governing them.
The professor stressed that the youths will prove a point in the 2023 elections.
“Look at what is happening in Africa in the recent elections — Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, and Botswana — all of the people that were ridiculed as internet champions won,” he said.
“Africans are fed up with the government that does not work.
“Politicians display this obsessive self-love and they do trading off in transactions for their self-interest, forgetting the people. This is what has kept Nigeria below par.
“The youths of Africa are saying this cannot continue. They proved it in Kenya, Malawi and they are going to prove it in Nigeria.”
On the strategy his party will deploy to beat the traditional political parties, the political economy professor said,
“We have a strategy that is so clear. You know, elections in Nigeria have been producing low turnouts yearly even though the population is growing. Why is that so?
“Traditionally, most of those votes (referring to previous elections) came from the rigging. Electoral law has made it more difficult to do those things.
“Young people, who typically say, ‘let them do what they want to do, have said enough is enough, we cannot japa, we have to stay here and save our country’.
“And these young people constitute a huge part of the population. The strategy is to make those young people not just voters but protectors of the votes.”
