The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) overstretching the limits of Nigerians by allegedly trivialising and politicising the unemployment level in the country.
The PDP in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said the ruling party should be ready to face the consequences of its actions.
It stated that for allegedly attempting to distort facts on unemployment, which were already in the public domain, the APC has confirmed that it has never been interested in the welfare of Nigerians.
“It is imperative to also state that with its latest deportment, the APC has completed the trappings of a dying party and leaves no one in doubt that it has always been a power-grabbing special purpose vehicle, which has now come to the end of its journey.
“It is shameful that in its attempt to deny that the number of unemployment persons and job losses across the formal and informal sectors had surge under its administration, the APC forgot that the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Chris Ngige, had earlier disclosed that unemployment rate was at a frightening 23.1 percent while raising alarm that the rate will hit a devastating 33.5 percent in the new year, 2020.”
It added: “The APC also forgot that the minister, Ngige, while declaring open a two-day workshop on high unemployment rate earlier in the year, reportedly described the situation as scary and further alerted that apart from the swelling unemployment rate, underemployment had also surged to 16.6 percent.
“The APC also chose not to remember that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in an earlier report, stated that 16 million Nigerians (which has now risen to 18 million) were unemployed, 18 million more were underemployed while another 27.44 million, reportedly refused to work in 2016 for various reasons not unrelated to frustration in the polity under the APC administration.
“It is completely unpardonable that rather than accepting the truth and seeking solution to the looming unemployment Armageddon, the APC seeks to trivialise and politicise a serious national problem. Such crass irresponsibility was never exhibited and could never have been allowed under a PDP-controlled Federal Government.”
The opposition party noted that it was shameful that while well-meaning Nigerians were worried about the unemployment situation and seeking solutions, the APC and its government were rationalising their alleged under-the-table system of selective employment of a few, which favours only their cronies at the expense of majority of Nigerians
“Today, under the APC, Ministries, Departments and Agencies’ employment letters are sold far beyond the reach of the children of regular Nigerians while the APC government gloats…
“Rather than seeking for a scapegoat where there is none, the APC should confess its sins and make haste to return the over N14 trillion stolen under its watch including the stolen N9 trillion exposed in the leaked NNPC memo. This is in addition to the mindless looting in agencies including NHIS, NEMA and FIRS.
‘The APC should also take responsibility for the mortgaging of our nation with the $83 billion debt accumulated by its administration.”
The APC National Publicity Secretary, Malam Lanre Issa-Onilu, last week said President Buhari’s administration has put a lot of PDP members out of their illegitimate job of looting the country, not the fictitious 40 million Nigerians being bandied by the PDP.
He claimed that for 16 years, several leaders of the PDP were having a bazaar over the nation’s commonwealth to produce world’s highest number of billionaires whose only enterprise was pilfering public purse.
