Revealed: Govs championed 2012 fuel subsidy removal — Jonathan

…Says subsidy removal was seen by APC as window to
bring down his govt
By Soni Daniel, Northe

Nearly six years after implementing a controversial fuel
subsidy withdrawal which sparked a nationwide protest,
former President Goodluck Jonathan has revealed that it
was the 36 state governors who pushed him to remove the
subsidy to provide more money for them.rn Region Editor


Jonathan, who made the startling revelation in his book, My
Transition Hours, unveiled in an upscale event in Abuja
yesterday, however, accused the same governors of
precipitating a mass protest against him and his
administration when Nigerians kicked against the fuel price
hike from N65 to N97 per litre,
The former president also slammed the then speaker of the
House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, who is
currently the governor of Sokoto State, for hobnobbing with
the opposition to tackle him over the fuel price increase.
Jonathan recalled how Tambuwal mobilised the members
of the House to sit on a Sunday just to condemn the
deregulation approved by his administration.
The former leader said that Tambuwal embarked on the
session in the hope that he (Jonathan) had travelled out of
the country to South Africa for the centenary celebration of
African National Congress, ANC.
“That was the first and only time in Nigeria’s political
history that the Parliament sat on a Sunday. At that sitting,
an opposition member of the House got up to allege that I
had abandoned the nation at such a crucial time to join in
festivity in South Africa.
“Unknown to the House, on that same day, while they were
sitting, I was at Eagle Square to commission mass transit
vehicles my administration purchased to cushion the effect
of the subsidy removal.
‘’I had to address the issue by telling the nation that it was
untrue that I had abandoned the nation at such a crucial
time to join festivities in South Africa. The country was
tense and the public was wondering what would happen
next,” he said.
Jonathan accused the governors, especially those from the
opposition APC, of abandoning their push for deregulation
when the protests broke out, castigating him and his
administration for the decision, apparently to look good
before the people.
He said in the 194-page book: “State governors of the main
opposition party, some of whom were champions of the
subsidy removal in our meetings on the matter, made a
volta face.”








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