CONFESSIONS: NIGERIA EXPERIENCED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DURING JONATHAN’S ADMINISTRATION, WE PLAYED POLITICS WITH 2012 OCCUPY NIGERIA …FAYEMI

 NIGERIA EXPERIENCED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DURING JONATHAN’S ADMINISTRATION, WE PLAYED POLITICS WITH 2012 OCCUPY NIGERIA …FAYEMI

Former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. John Kayode Fayemi, on Tuesday, said the last time Nigeria experienced economic development was during Jonathan’s administration.

Dr. Fayemi said this in Abuja at a national dialogue organized to celebrate the 60th birthday celebration of Professor Udenta Udenta  the founding National Secretary of Alliance for Democracy.

The former governor also said the protest that trailed the fuel subsidy removal during the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 was due to political interests.

On January 1, 2012, the PDP-led government of President Goodluck Jonathan announced the removal of fuel subsidy and adjusted the pump price of petrol from N65 per litre to N141.

A national protest with the theme ‘Occupy Nigeria’ across the nation was organized by leaders of the All Progressives Congress, who were then in different opposition parties, including the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressives Congress, All Nigeria Peoples Party, and All Progressive Grand Alliance., shutting down major cities of the country for over a week.

Fuel price was later reduced to N97, and later to N87 in 2015.

Dr. Fayemi condemned what he described as the “winners take all” style of Nigeria’s democracy He 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.”

He further said, “Today, I read former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s interview 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 percent. 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 percent 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.

He confessed that in ACN at the time, in 2012, they knew 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.”

In attendance at the programme were Dr Goodluck Jonathan, former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili and former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, among others.