The former governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, yesterday confessed that the ‘Occupy Nigeria’ protest against the removal of subsidy on petrol during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 was politically motivated.
Fayemi stated this while in his keynote address at a national dialogue organised to commemorate the 60th birthday of the founding national secretary of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD), Prof Udenta Udenta in Abuja yesterday.
Recall that on January 1, 2012, Jonathan announced the removal of fuel subsidy, therefore adjusting the pump price of the product from N65 per litre to N141.
The announcement torched off mass protests, known as ‘Occupy Nigeria’ across major cities of the country.
The price was later adjusted to N97 after more than a week of protests and further down to N87 in 2015.
The arrowheads of the protest were the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressives Congress (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and a faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), which later metamorphosed into the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Fayemi affirmed that the protest against subsidy removal which took place across the country in Kano, Surulere, Ojota (Lagos), Abuja, Minna, and at the Nigerian High Commission in London, was mere politics.
The former minister of solid minerals also affirmed that the last time Nigeria experienced economic development was during Jonathan’s administration
Fayemi who apologised to Jonathan who was also present at the event declared: “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.
“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.
“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,” he said.
At the event where Nigeria’s journey toward national unity and democratic sustainability was discussed, Fayemi called for proportional representation in government.
He also canvassed alternative politics to the challenges bedevilling the country rather than political alternative.
“And my own notion of alternative politics that can lead us to building a better consensus around progress is that you cannot have 37 per cent of the votes and take 100 per cent of the spoils. It is not going to work. It is not going to help build consensus.
“What we need is alternative politics and my own notion of alternative politics is that you can’t have 35 per cent of the votes and take 100 per cent. It won’t work.
“It is time we, as a country, begin to look in the direction of what is generally known as proportional representation so that the party declared to have won 21 per cent of the votes also has 21 per cent of the government. That way, we will all see ourselves as critical stakeholders because we know what adversarial politics breeds. Adversarial politics always breeds division and enmity,” he added.
The event was attended by Jonathan, former minister of education, Oby Ezekwesili, and former minister of aviation, Osita Chidoka, among othe
