USAfrica: Beyond cancer, this blessed man named Pat Utomi. By Chido Nwangwu

Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first African-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.

Chido Nwangwu is the Founder of USAfrica

Pat Okedinachi Utomi, professor of political economy and business management, is one of Africa’s most respected public intellectuals. He is not only a visionary thinker, he’s an activist who has impacted and the lazy assumptions and perennial prejudices of Nigeria’s ethnic politics.  

In Nigeria’s contemporary history, Prof. Utomi continues to make a commendable name as a key strategist, articulator and one of the critical foundational pillars of the ‘Obidient Movement’. That is, the ubiquitous, potent and disruptive domestic and international movement led by the suddenly charismatic politician and very successful businessman (“trader”), former Governor Peter Obi.  

Although, we chat/call more, the most recent time we briefly met was in Houston on August 31, 2022 when Utomi and Obi came for a town hall meeting with the Nigerian diaspora. On August 30, the manifestly accomplished and well-spoken Utomi deployed the proper existential matters, contextual issues, and relevant information to introduce and present Obi to Houstonians and the diaspora. Before they came into Houston, I had a scheduled one-on-one interview with Obi for USAfricaTV and USAfricaonline.com

In 2011, when Utomi contested unsuccessfully to become President of Nigeria, he said something which has been very rare in the cannibalization that claims to be politics in Nigeria and across most parts of Africa: “I have inherited the courage to give of myself for the good of all.” I wrote about him and characterized Pat Utomi as “this blessed man.”

Exactly one week ago, on Friday, August 11, 2023,  “this blessed man”, Pat Utomi, showed the same courage and selflessness when made this revelation about his private battle in a series of tweets he posted on the X app (previously known as Twitter). 

He was diagnosed with cancer in 2022, in the thick of the campaign, where he provided strategic guidance and messaging for the candidacy of Peter Obi.

Utomi noted that the cancer health problem persuaded him to engage in educating people. He pointed out that he “Did not see why it was taboo to say you were in a battle with Cancer. The more I talked about it the more I found many of my age in similar circumstances.”

A prayerful man of christian faith who believes in the provenance of God in human lives, the lanky technocrat Utomi believes “For what I have become, and can be, by the Grace of God, I have many, who were God’s instruments to be thankful to.  From a father who taught me the meaning of hard work and a sense of duty before he passed away so young, to a mother who stood like a rock of Gilbratar, and in a quarter of a century as a widow, before she too answered an early call from the creator.” I know that Pat Utomi is not only one of Africa’s leading persons of ideas but a sensible man of his family values. He recalls that “my very life itself is an improbable dream come true.  People so easily forget that I am the product of the tenacity of a widow who was a simple trader.”

Pat Utomi, born to Igbo parents on February 6, 1956 in the key Northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, and grew up and had his early education in the same North, in Kano and Gusau, attended CKC Onitsha in the East, Loyola College in Ibadan, in the SouthWest, and passed the entrance examinations to gain admission into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), my alma mater. He graduated in 1977, and continued for advanced studies at  Indiana University in Bloomington, achieving his degrees of  Ph.D. MPA, and MA. At almost 27 years old, it was an unusual feat! 

He returned immediately to Nigeria and has remained one of the fountains of optimism and redemption songs prophets in Nigeria, and Africa. He has remained resolute, and unbowed to date, still singing and building realistic blocks for democracy and development!

A savvy networker, Pat Utomi (aka Patito)  was many years ahead of me at our alma mater, the great University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) where he remains an outstanding personage among our esteemed alumni of Lions and Lionesses. 

Since 1987 (inside Nigeria) and the 1990s to date (August 2023, here in the U.S), I have known and interacted with him as someone who is also dedicated to human development, economic empowerment, justice and transparency, respect for the environment, nationalities questions, media freedom and the enthronement of the fundamentals of democratic rights.

•Dr. Chido Nwangwu, author of the forthcoming 2023 book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity., is the Founder of the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper on the internet, USAfricaonline.com, and established USAfrica in 1992 in Houston.He has appeared as an analyst on CNN, ALJazeera, SKYnews, and served as an adviser on Africa business to Houston’s former Mayor Lee Brown. Follow him on Twitter @Chido247

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