Former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, said the protest that followed fuel subsidy removal by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 was politically motivated.
President Bola Tinubu, then leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and many opposition leaders frowned at it, with the former Lagos governor describing the decision then as “Jonathan tax” in a statement he released entitled, “Removal of oil subsidy – President Jonathan breaks social contract with the people”.
This, Fayemi, then member of the opposition, said is all politics.
He let this known on Tuesday in his keynote address 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.
The former governor dropped this bomb while condemning the winners take all political situation operative in the country.
His word, “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.
“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.”
