…admits ACN mobilization against subsidy removal in 2012 political
By Yohana Samson
Immediate past Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has said Nigeria’s politics of winner-takes-all was discouraging spirited attempts aimed at nation-building.
According to him, when a political party which wins an election with say 21 percent of the votes takes it all, it encourages divisive and acrimonious politics which is unhealthy for national cohesion.
The former Governor and Cheiftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress said this in his remarks during a national dialogue organised to commemorate the 60th birthday of the founding National Secretary of Alliance for Democracy and Fellow, Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, Professor Udenta Udenta in Abuja, on Tuesday.
Fayemi said, “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.”
He also admitted to Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan who was at the event, that opposition political parties including the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria ACN which he was part of, mobilised Nigerians against subsidy removal by the Jonathan government purely on political grounds.
According to him, the “Occupy Nigeria” protest of 2012, which had leading activists and clergy men as participants was part of a larger opposition political strategy.
He said, “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, (referring to Jonathan) but it is all politics.”
He paid glowing tributes to Jonathan for his economic policies noting that it was during his administration that Nigeria experienced its last serious economic growth.
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.”
