Mariam Adebukola 
A political economist and a chieftain of the Labour Party (LP), Professor Pat Utomi has called on Nigerians never to take the Independent National Electorial Commission (INEC) seriously again.
Prof. Utomi made this known on Wednesday while expressing his view that politics has had a detrimental impact on the institutions within the country, lamenting that nobody takes the electoral umpire seriously anymore.
Speaking while addressing attendees at the premier gathering of the “New Tribe of Patriots for the Nigerian Restoration” in Abuja on Wednesday, the economist noted that Nigeria is currently facing a severe national crisis, which makes the need for strong institutions more critical than ever.
He highlighted that the erosion of shared values and the weakening of institutions have significantly hindered the efforts to construct a better Nigeria.
He argued that values shape human progress just as strong institutions remain critical to the growth of any society.
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Utomi said, “Politics has further weakened our institutions, no one takes INEC as an institution seriously anymore. Institutions are critical to the growth of any society, values shape human progress.
“No normal Nigerian is in doubt that we are in the depths of a national crisis. Some may come to an interpretation of the crisis from prisms shaped by partisanship or where the divergence stoked by the dichotomy of Emotion and Reason has created chasms of gaps between ‘us and them’.
“It is not my purpose to probe into those now but rather to recognize the universal frustration among Nigerians and their friends of Nigeria with the state of the country.
“Whether it be in the state of insecurity that spares no part of the country, or in the poverty that ravages the land of a people whose factor endowments aggressively wave signals of potential prosperity, it is a time of pain for all.
“If I look from the angle of the toxic politics of the times, weak and failing institutions, and collapse of culture that benchmark the generation, an even great anguish of distress is proclaimed by both the strong and the weak, the poor and the rich, and even the committed and despondent waiting to Japa.”
