POLITICS

2012 Anti-Subsidy Removal Protest Was Political- Fayemi Confesses

 

The former governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, has characterized the protests against fuel subsidy removal during former President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2012 administration as purely political.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan had on January 1, 2012, announced the removal of fuel subsidy, resulting in the petrol pump price rising from N65 per litre to N141, sparking widespread ‘Occupy Nigeria’ protests across major cities.

Fayemi expressed this viewpoint in Abuja on Tuesday, while delivering a keynote address at a national dialogue organized to celebrate the 60th birthday of Prof. Udenta Udenta, the founding national secretary of Alliance for Democracy (AD) and a fellow of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought.

Fayemi argued that the country’s current challenges could only be effectively addressed through proportional representation, where election gains are fairly distributed among contestants.

He added that embracing proportional representation could reduce division and enmity in Nigerian politics, allowing parties to have a share of the government commensurate with their electoral support.

He said: “Today, I read former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s interview in The Cable saying our liberal democracy is not working and we need to revisit it. And I agree with him, we must move from a political alternative, I think we are almost at a dead end.

“What we need is alternative politics and my own notion of alternative politics is that you can’t have 35 per cent of the vote and take 100 per cent. It won’t work. We must look at proportional representation so that the party that is said to have 21 per cent of the vote will have 21 per cent of the government. Adversary politics bring division and enmity.

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“All political parties in the country agreed and they even put in their manifesto that the subsidy must be removed. We all said the subsidy must be removed. But we in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) at the time in 2012, we know the truth sir but it is all politics. That is why we must ensure that everybody is a crucial stakeholder by stopping all these. Let manifesto of PDP, APC, Labour Party be put on the table and select all those who will pilot the programme from all parties.”

The event was attended by former President Goodluck Jonathan, former minister of education in Nigeria, Oby Ezekwesili, and former minister of aviation, Osita Chidoka, among others.

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