- Utomi said Nigeria’s economic resources are being wasted on politicians while productive sectors like agriculture are left underfunded.
- He revealed that traders now pay up to N18 million per container at the ports, forcing many out of business.
The professor of political economy, Pat Utomi, has criticised the federal government’s economic priorities, describing them as misplaced and detrimental to national growth.
Utomi said the government’s obsession with revenue generation is suffocating the economy and frustrating efforts to drive sustainable development.
He spoke on Friday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
Utomi said the federal government is channelling most of the nation’s resources towards the political class rather than productive sectors capable of stimulating economic expansion.
“Most non-productive sectors, the political class, for example, and we need to get the resources that are available to go directly into ramping up food first of all, and then the value chain from those factor endowments around agriculture,” he said.
He stated that the government’s aggressive revenue drive is forcing traders and importers out of business due to prohibitive port charges.
“Ask any trader today how much they can bring through the ports. The desperation for rising revenue means that every container is being sold at about N18 million or some similar amount,” he said.
Utomi pointed out that pharmaceutical importers are now unable to maintain supply due to thin profit margins on critical drugs like anti-malarials.
“Many pharmaceutical importers have very thin margins on their anti-malarials and related drugs.
“When they come through the ports in this desperation for revenue and get hit with tax on each container, it means they can’t import a new set of containers of anti-malarials,” he added.
The professor lamented that the current economic model benefits only politicians while worsening the living conditions of ordinary Nigerians.
“It means that while government revenues are going up — and are being squandered by politicians — the Nigerian people have no possibility of a better life.
“This revenue issue needs to be put in context and properly understood. To use revenue as evidence of progress is not to understand economics,” he said.
Utomi warned that slight stability in the naira and official pronouncements on economic recovery are meaningless if inflation continues to erode the people’s purchasing power.
“If you are from hell to purgatory, have you been saved from damnation?” he asked, while dismissing claims that the economy is improving.
He argued that genuine economic recovery can only be assessed through job creation and affordability of basic goods.
“Food is the ultimate. When people can’t eat, anything can happen,” Utomi declared.
He urged the federal government to prioritise investment in agriculture, education, and healthcare as critical pillars for Nigeria’s future.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), on July 21, reported that Nigeria’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate stood at 3.13 percent in the first quarter of 2025.
The figure was higher than the 2.27 percent GDP growth recorded in the corresponding period of 2024.