By Louis Achi
The massive protest launched against the fuel subsidy removal by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 was mere politics.
This revelation was made, Tuesday, by the immediate past governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi while delivering his keynote address at a national dialogue organised to celebrate the 60th birthday of the founding National Secretary of Alliance for Democracy (AD), Professor Udenta Udenta, in Abuja.
The event was also graced by Jonathan; former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili; and former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, among other top dignitaries.
It could be recalled that on January 1, 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan announced the removal of fuel subsidy, thereafter adjusting the pump price of petrol from N65 per litre to N141 in a move that provoked mass protests, tagged ‘Occupy Nigeria’ across major cities of the country.
Jonathan later responded by adjusting the peice to N97 after more than a week of protests. It was still further reduced to N87 in 2015.
Leaders of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), who are now mostly in the All Progressives Congress (APC) were the key arrowheads of the anti-Jonathan protest over the fuel price adjustment.
The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) were some of the other parties that fought the Jonathan administration.
While speaking at the event, Fayemi said the challenges confronting the nation today cannot be solved unless the country embraces proportional representation where the spoils of elections are shared between contestants.
He held 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 a political alternative, I think we are almost on 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 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 one 21 per cent of the vote will have 21 per cent of the government. Adversarial 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 stakeholders by stopping all these.
“Let the manifesto of PDP, APC, Labour Party be put on the table and select all those who will pilot the programme from all parties.”
