Chuks Okocha in Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a party that has overstretched the limits of Nigerians by trivialising and politicising the frightening unemployment level under its watch.
PDP further accused the APC of mutilating and manipulating the unemployment statistics as part of its lying style.
It, therefore, called on the ruling party to be ready to face the consequences ahead of its fizzling before 2023.
PDP said in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, that the ruling party attempted to distort and muffle facts on unemployment, which are already in the public domain.
According to the main opposition party, the APC has confirmed that it remains an Automated Lying Machine, which has never been interested in the welfare of Nigerians.
The main opposition party in the statement said it was shameful that in its attempt to deny that the number of unemployment persons and job losses across the formal and informal sectors had surged 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 per cent while raising the alarm that the rate would hit a devastating 33.5 per cent in 2020.
PDP said: “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 per cent.
“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.”
According to PDP, it is completely unpardonable that rather than accepting the truth and seeking for solution to the looming unemployment Armageddon, the APC seeks to trivialise and politicise a serious national problem.
Such crass irresponsibility, it said, was never exhibited and could never have been allowed under a PDP-controlled federal government.
PDP said it was shameful that at the time well-meaning Nigerians were worried about the situation and seeking for solutions, the APC and its government were bent on justifying their looting of the national resources as well as rationalising their under-the-table system of selective employment of a few, which favours only their cronies at the expense of majority of Nigerian youth.
