Dr. Kayode Fayemi, a former Governor of Ekiti State, stated on Tuesday that the protests that occurred following the fuel subsidy removal during President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in 2012 were driven by political interests.
Fayemi made this statement during his keynote address at a national dialogue held to commemorate the 60th birthday of Professor Udenta Udenta, the founding National Secretary of the Alliance for Democracy and a Fellow at the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, in Abuja.
The programme was graced by former president Jonathan, former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili; former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, among others.
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In 2012, the Nigerian Labour Congress led a coalition of civil society organizations – backed by opposition political parties – under the aegis of Occupy Nigeria, to stage weeklong protests across the country over the decision by then president Goodluck Jonathan, to remove fuel subsidy.
The attempted removal of the fuel subsidy resulted in the adjustment of the petrol pump price from N65 to N141 per liter. However, the protests forced the government to reverse its decision, readjusting fuel price to N97 per liter.
The protests, backed by different political parties such as the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressives Congress (CPC), and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) that would later merge to form the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), paved way for the emergence of Buhari in 2015.
More than a decade after these protests, fuel prices have been repeatedly increased particularly under former president Muhammadu Buhari, who had promised to reduce the price from N87 to N40.
One year into his presidency, Buhari astonished the nation by raising the pump price from N87 to N145. Following his re-election for a second term, fuel prices continued to climb, reaching N161 per liter in 2020. By November of that same year, the price had risen further to N170. Upon his departure from office on May 29, a liter of fuel was being sold at N210.
All these happened without protests.
While confessing that the 2012 protests were politically motivated, Fayemi said that Nigeria’s democracy is not working. 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 also acknowledged that the last time Nigeria experienced economic development was during Jonathan’s administration, adding that Nigeria needs to do away with politics of hate and division.
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 percent 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 percent 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. 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.”