Pat Utomi, a political economist and management expert, has stated that if the Igbo ask him to run for president in the upcoming 2023 general elections, he will gladly accept.

The professor insisted, however, that he was not position-drunk, and that ‘office and power’ hold little appeal for him.

Utomi was questioned if he would consider running for the 2023 elections as an Igbo candidate in an interview on Arise TV on Saturday. He responded saying, “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 President 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.”

“Fundamental to the problem of politics is that it is believed that politics is fair game. You can cheat, lie and do anything that shows a lack of character, and they would call it politics. We must end that in Nigeria. People of character have to enter public life. This is part of the campaign that we have,” Utomi said of the country’s political structure and electioneering process.

“Most times, we find people in public office who don’t have the capacity; people who haven’t developed themselves to provide that leadership.”

Pat Utomi stated that by 2023, Nigeria would require leaders who would make sacrifices for the common good of all, rather than those who were only interested in occupying positions.

He said, “We need leaders that we will turn to and say ‘make some sacrifice for the common good of all’ not ‘I need this position. I have to have to this position.’ That is what the challenge of our country is.

“For me, the titles don’t matter. I even created a set of values I termed ‘the LWT series’ which means ‘Leader Without Title’.”