Utomi was reacting to the May 15 tripartite committee meeting on the new minimum wage, where organised labour pulled out, following disagreements that ensued. The political economist said that the problem was that the Nigerian economy was being mismanaged. According to him, the tripartite committee on the new minimum wage does not understand what it is dealing with.
“It means, for example, that we know that in agriculture, for certain legumes, in three months you can produce so much food, mobilise half of every village into farm protection army, since one of the big problems with why people are not farming is supposed to be insecurity. “Take another quarter, who are interested in massive agricultural investment or support and give every young person almost like Operation Feed the Nation of Obasanjo’s time.