September 05, (THEWILL) – A former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has opened up on the “Occupy Nigeria Protest”, which trailed the fuel subsidy removal during the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012.
While presenting his keynote address at a national dialogue, organised to celebrate the 60th birthday of the founding National Secretary of Alliance for Democracy (AD), and Fellow, Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, Prof Udenta Udenta, in Abuja, on Tuesday, Fayemi said the protest was mere politics.
THEWILL recalls that Jonathan faced serious backlash from members of the opposition parties in 2012 when he announced the removal of fuel subsidy and adjusted the price of petroleum from N65 to N141.
The ‘Occupy Nigeria’ protests that followed the decision forced his government to re-adjust the pump price to N97 per litre, which was subsequently reduced to N87 per litre in 2015, ahead of a general election.
Opposition leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who were then in different opposition parties, including the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressives Congress (CPC) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), were the major actors of the protest.
Speaking on the need for Nigeria to have alternative politics, Fayemi called for a system of government that is representative of all political parties.
He said the challenges facing the nation today cannot be solved unless the country embraces proportional representation, where the spoils of elections are shared between contestants.
On fuel subsidy removal, Fayemi said all the main political parties in the last general election agreed to remove it, but in 2012, opposition leaders in the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria played politics with Jonathan’s decision.
He added that the last time Nigeria experienced economic development was during Jonathan’s administration.
His words, “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 political alternatives, I think we are almost at a dead end of that.
“What we need is alternative politics and my own notion of alternative politics is that you can’t have 35 percent of the vote and take 100 percent. It won’t work. We must look at proportional representation so that the party that is said to have one 21 percent of the vote will have 21 percent of the government.
Adversary politics bring division and enmity.
“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 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 the manifesto of PDP, APC, and Labour Party be put on the table and select all those who will pilot the programme from all parties.”
THEWILL reports that the event was attended by Jonathan, former minister of education in Nigeria, Oby Ezekwesili, former minister of aviation, Osita Chidoka, among others.
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