While acknowledging these as symptoms, Utomi insisted the core issue lies deeper. “There’s such a much deeper crisis of elite,” he said, lamenting that since Nigeria’s formative years, the nation’s leadership has drifted from a vision of collective progress to one of personal gain “The long-term good of Nigerian people doesn’t seem to quite strike them when they get this opportunity to take care of themselves. And this is really the Nigerian tragedy,” he said.
He also condemned the role of the media in enabling Nigeria’s decline, accusing it of being compromised by poverty and elite influence. “Let’s not pretend, Nigerian media has been a terrible failure. They make an effort, some of them, but they’re captured easily,” he said. Utomi criticised current economic policies, describing them as obsessed with “stabilisation” rather than genuine development.