Professor Pat Utomi has warned that Nigeria risks descending into collapse, with millions of lives potentially affected, if the country fails to strengthen its institutions, electoral system and rule of law.

Utomi, a political economist and elder statesman, said the growing acceptance of abnormal practices in the country had created uncertainty and made the cost of doing business and engaging with society increasingly high, warning that the situation could ultimately lead to societal breakdown.

Utomi spoke on Thursday at the 22nd All Nigeria Editors’ Conference of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) in Enugu, with the theme, “The ballot, the media and the task of keeping democracy alive.”

He stressed the importance of credible elections, strong institutions and precision in law as essential foundations for national development.

According to him, elections were not merely periodic exercises for selecting political leaders, but an important institution for legitimising government and giving citizens confidence in the political system.

He said: “They are there for a purpose. They are there for a purpose because it legitimises the government.

“If the people are convinced that there is no point, what is an election? Imagine the amount of money we waste to have elections that are totally meaningless.

“Because they do not legitimise anybody. Everybody assumes that elections are problems.

“Look, I don’t want to make you, let somebody just announce himself as our God. And let’s start following him. If we save that money, we can use it for better things.

“But if we really recognise the value of the electoral process, and it has great value. This is institution building.”

Utomi, who said he had spent a good part of his adult life researching and writing about institutions and economic performance, maintained that the quality of a country’s institutions was a major factor distinguishing successful societies from those that fail.

He explained that institutions provide boundaries within which people could understand the consequences of their actions, thereby reducing uncertainty and transaction costs and creating an environment for economic growth and social progress.

“A good part of my adult life, I have passionately researched and written about institutions and economic performance. You can tell countries that fail from countries that succeed by essentially looking at their institutions.

“And institutions are simply boundaries. Boundaries that define behaviour. Within the boundaries, you can anticipate outcomes. Outside the boundaries, there are consequences.

“Because of it, uncertainty is reduced, transaction costs are lowered, and people can grow and make progress.

“What has happened to us, unfortunately, is because the abnormal has become so accepted that the transaction costs of engaging in Nigeria are such that we are only heading in one direction, ultimate collapse.”

The professor warned that the consequences of institutional failure could be severe if citizens became convinced that they had no meaningful way of influencing the direction of the country.

“Anybody who wants, they can test me. It doesn’t happen next year, two years, but if nothing changes, Nigeria will collapse and it will cost millions of lives.

“Because you see, if people realise that they can’t do anything about anything, they keep quiet. And today, they get angry enough, they destroy something. And we descend into anarchy.”

Utomi also referred to experiences in other countries where institutional breakdown had contributed to instability and conflict, warning that Nigeria should not assume that such a fate was impossible.

He recalled an American author, Robert D. Kaplan, and his book The Coming Anarchy, saying the work had projected the possibility of societies in parts of the world collapsing into disorder.

He cited the experiences of Sudan and Somalia as examples of the consequences of prolonged institutional and political breakdown.

“We saw what happened in Somalia. But somehow, we managed to keep laughing about it. But it’s coming at us,” he said.

Utomi also assigned a major responsibility to journalists and editors in protecting institutions and democratic values, describing them as “the gatekeepers” of society.

“And journalists, editors, the gatekeepers, have an even more important role to play in that regard than lawyers. But lawyers have an extremely important role,” he said. (The Sun, but headline tweaked)