N5,000 stipend: APC deceived Nigerians, says PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party says Wednesday’s rejection by the All Progressives Congress senators of the N5,000 monthly stipend for the unemployed youths, underscores the hypocrisy of the ruling party in getting to power by means of deceit and false promises to Nigerians.

The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Olisa Metuh, in a statement he issued in Abuja on Thursday, said that the development was a clear confirmation that the APC “is a party of hypocrites.”

He claimed that the APC never had the intention of honouring any of its campaign promises.

Metuh said, “The PDP declares that it is absolutely obvious to all that the APC came to power riding on monumental lies and deceit in making promises they had no intention to keep.

“All they wanted was to get to power and they achieved this with their lying tongues.

“Indeed, the unanimity displayed by the APC senators in rejecting the promised N5, 000 monthly welfare package, especially coming after their party and the Presidency had made futile efforts to distance themselves from it, further stresses the duplicitous spirit of the APC and its reprehensible insensitivity to the feelings and aspirations of Nigerians, especially the unsuspecting youths, women and the indigent, who they shamelessly swindled with false promises.”

Metuh said because of this, Nigerians should not expect any sincere action from the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC government on the other promises, including monthly allowance to unemployed graduates; free meals and scholarship to school children; and bringing the naira at par with the US dollar.

“Our position remains that the APC has sufficiently confirmed to the world that they have a lot to learn on the leadership values of honesty, integrity, credibility and forthrightness,” he added.

However, the APC has dismissed the claims by the PDP that the ruling party was deceiving Nigerians.

The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Timi Frank, said this in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja on Thursday.

Frank said the APC won the 2015 elections largely because Nigerians were tired of the deceit of the PDP which lasted for 16 years.

He said, “Nigerians can testify that the APC administration under President Muhammadu Buhari has started delivering on its promises to Nigerians.

“In less than six months, the administration has demonst

“I can tell you clearly that the APC under our President will deliver on all of the promises made during the campaigns. The PDP which has yet to get over its electoral defeat will be put to shame at the end of the day.”

Meanwhile, the PDP has dismissed, as hollow, the argument by the APC in attempting to use the outcome of the 2015 general elections as a premise to claim victory in the last Saturday’s Borno Central senatorial bye election.

The party said the APC, by such an argument, might as well forget about contesting the December 5 governorship election in Bayelsa State where the ruling PDP won all contested positions in the 2015 general elections.

Metuh said the APC had failed to realise that the people were no longer excited about the change it offered and that a space of six months was more than enough for the electorate to turn against the ruling party, which he said had failed in office.

He said, “The scandalous resort by the APC to use security forces to frighten and intimidate voters and electoral officers to sway votes in its favour, in addition to other ploys made to set the stage for violence in the process, clearly corroborates the fact that it has already lost its support base in the country and particularly in the North.

“We are aware that the APC is already stretching its desperation to Kogi and Bayelsa states where, in the attempt to create tension, unleashed thugs on the campaign train of Governor Seriake Dickson on Tuesday, an action that is a clear test run of their machinery of violence ahead of the Bayelsa December 5 election.

“Intelligence report available to us shows that this brazen attack on Governor Dickson was not spontaneous but part of a well-hatched plot to create an atmosphere of insecurity in the state, ostensibly to pave the way for their violence-driven rigging strategy, including the deployment of APC-controlled security forces to frighten and intimidate voters as was the case in the Borno bye election.

“The PDP wishes to state in clear terms that it would resist any attempt by the APC to derail the peaceful conduct of the November 21 and December 5 governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states respectively.”
rated its seriousness in bringing about positive change.