We played politics with ex-Pres. Jonathan’s subsidy removal in 2012 — Ex-Ekiti gov

It was all politics when we staged a protest against fuel subsidy removal during the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012, so says an APC chieftain and immediate past Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi.

“All political parties in the country agreed and they even put in their manifesto that 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,” he said in Abuja on Tuesday.

Fayemi said while speaking at a national dialogue organiszed in commemoration of the 60th birthday celebration of the founding National Secretary of Alliance for Democracy and Fellow, Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, Prof. Udenta Udenta.

The dialogue was attended by Jonathan, former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, an ex-Aviation Minister, Mr Osita Chidoka, among others.

Persecondnews recalls that , ex-President Jonathan had in 2012 announced the removal of petrol subsidy and adjusted the pump price of petrol from N65 per litre to N141.

The opposition party at the time, President Bola Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) which metamorphosed from Alliance for Democracy (AD) and some activists took to streets, locked down Ikorodu-Lagos Expressway for about a week to protest the planned subsidy removal.

The pump price was later re-adjusted back to N97 per litre.

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.“