Fuel subsidy: We played politics with 2012 Occupy Nigeria – Fayemi

A former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, today, said the protest that trailed the fuel subsidy removal during the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 was due to political interests.

Fayemi said this in his keynote address delivered at a national dialogue organised to celebrate the 60th birthday celebration of the founding National Secretary of Alliance for Democracy and Fellow, Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, Professor Udenta Udenta in Abuja.

The programme was attended by Jonathan, former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili; former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, among others.

While condemning what he described as the “winners take all” style of Nigeria’s democracy, Fayemi said the challenges facing the nation today cannot be solved unless the country embraced proportional representation, where the spoils of elections are shared between contestants.

According to him, the last time Nigeria experienced economic development was during Jonathan’s administration

Fayemi 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 the political alternatives. 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 won 21 per cent of the votes will have 21 per cent of the government. Adversary politics bring division and enmity.

“All political parties in the country agreed and they even put in their manifesto that subsidy must be removed. We all said subsidy must be removed. But we in ACN at the time, in 2012, we know the truth Sir, but it is all politics.