The protest that trailed the fuel subsidy removal during the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 was due to political interests, Kayode Fayemi.

A former Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, said the protest that trailed the fuel subsidy removal during the administration of President
Goodluck Jonathan in 2012 was due to political interests. Fayemi said this on Tuesday in his keynote address delivered at a national dialogue in Abuja. In January 2012, President Jonathan announced the removal of fuel subsidy, causing a significant increase in the pump price of petrol, from 65 naira per litre to 141 naira. This decision caused widespread protests across major cities in Nigeria, known as Occupy Nigeria. After more than a week of protests, the government adjusted the petrol price to N97 and later reduced it to N87 in 2015.

The former governor criticised the winner-takes-all nature of Nigeria’s democracy, saying the nation’s current challenges cannot be effectively
addressed without adopting proportional representation, where election rewards are distributed among contestants based on their share of the
vote. According to him, the last time Nigeria experienced economic development was during Jonathan’s administration.