Pat Utomi gives conditions to run for President in 2023

Renowned political commentator and economist, Pat Utomi, says he would only accept to run for the president of Nigeria in 2023 only on certain conditions.

Utomi who made the disclosure during an interview with Arise TV, stated that his ambition was subject to a consensual agreement by the Igbo people of the southeast.

The issue of an Igbo Presidency has been the subject of various political discourses with some stakeholders advocating for the region to produce the next President, in the interest of equity.

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The two major political parties in the country, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have yet to decide on zoning the Presidency to any region.

However, some high-profile politicians from the APC including National Leader of the party and former lagos State Governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, and Chief Whip of the Senate, Orji Uzor Kalu, have signified their interests in running for the coveted position in the country.

When asked whether he will consider putting his hat into the presidency ring in 2023 as an Igbo candidate, Utomi said:

“Igbo candidacy? If people come to me and say, ‘look! We have looked at your background. We have looked at your whole life of service and we think you are the candidate that the Igbo nation needs to offer to Nigeria, I would have no problem with that. But, am I driven by the very fact of position?

“Look, there are people who have been Presidents in Nigeria, who if you give me their place in history, I would rather never have held any office in Nigeria than be what history would remember them as.

“So, the fact of office and power has very little attraction to me as a person but service to transform the lives of people matter to me.

“It is about the people. Honestly, it is not about people who would hire crowds to come and say, ‘These people have come to ask me to run.’

“No, I have always seen service about people looking around them. Almost everything I have done in my life is to literally see it as a duty,” Utomi added.