Renowned economist, Prof Pat Utomi has declared that he is not afraid to die.
Utomi spoke amid the suit filed against him by the Department of State Services over his formation of a shadow government.
DSS considers his action unconstitutional and has gone to court to challenge it.
However, when asked his reaction to the development, Utomi said he was undaunted.
“There is nothing to react to. It is not funny that citizens are getting together to organise ourselves on how to hold governments accountable and provide alternative ideas on how to do things, and they decided that it is a matter for the DSS. It shows that there is a dearth of freedom.
“I have not received anything from them. How would I respond to something I have not received?” He queried.
On whether he feels threatened by the DSS’s move, he told PUNCH, “Why would I be threatened? If we die, we die.”
He also maintained that his decision was not outside the provisions of the law.
“They ought to go back and read the 1999 Constitution. They are playing with semantics, not with the reality of what is being proposed.
“The name, ‘shadow’ was used for the coalition. There is also the freedom of people in a democracy to associate and call themselves whatever they want.
“By the way, recall that when Goodluck Jonathan was President, this same group of people in power today threatened to form a parallel government.
“We are not threatening to form a parallel government. We are simply saying that the political party system is failing Nigeria; it’s almost a total collapse.
“People are jumping from one party to another. Once they have committed enough sins, they join the ruling party so that their sins can be forgiven or their elections can be guaranteed from rigging.
“Because that system is collapsing, citizens are making moves to ensure that the functions of government do not suffer.
“So, they try to get together and call themselves a shadow team, but the government begins to say it is not in the constitution. Which constitution is against the people getting together to say, ‘We will brainstorm on how we are being governed?’
“People are telling the government that there is a different way to do things and make them better. The government’s reaction shows that they have something they are scared of.
“They are scared of the Nigerian people. We have reached the point where the government is not scared of the political structure, because they know they can buy everybody.
“I thought the government would welcome our idea, because that was the most intelligent thing to do.
“But I began to hear all this panic, and the boys who yesterday spoke differently in my presence went on television and spoke without character against me. My heart breaks for Nigeria and for the future of our country.
“We are not threatening to form a parallel government like the APC threatened when they were in opposition.
“We are citizens who want to associate because political parties are failing us, and there is the need to speak up for ourselves instead of waiting for the political parties to do so. So, when did that begin to get into the constitution?”
On his strategies, he stated that “we have somebody attached to every major government function that we want to focus on. For instance, we have our shadow defence person, a Nigerian who was a colonel in the US Army.
“We have somebody to shadow the Independent National Electoral Commission and election reforms.
“Nigeria has failed disastrously in power, and this country has been set back more than 30 years because of the failure to deal with the power problem, which is driven mainly by corruption.
“Our power shadow person will present better and achievable ways to handle the country’s power problem.
“Our plan is to put before the Nigerian people a very credible initiative, which, in less than a decade, will generate five times as much power as Nigeria has generated with billions of naira spent.
“We will show Nigerians how we can do that. So, if the government wants to borrow it and can effectively implement it, they are welcome.
“I told my people not to worry about whether they steal our ideas or not; we will make the ideas public. That is all we are going to be doing: bringing out the ideas that can move Nigeria forward.”