The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the manifesto of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as unrealistic, saying it is meant to deceive and misdirect the electorate.
The PDP argued that APC’s promise to pay N5, 000 monthly stipend each to 25 million poor Nigerians, which would amount to N125 billion monthly and N1.5 trillion every year, cannot be achieved nor sustained, given the poor state of the nation’s economy and dwindling oil revenue.
“What is baffling is that the APC knows fully well that this is not only unrealistic but also impracticable in a nation with an estimated budget of N4.69 trillion comprising recurrent and capital expenditures yet they continue to dish it out to unsuspecting citizens in a clear bid to mislead.
“Since its formation about two years ago, the APC has introduced and sustained an unfortunate political streak sustained majorly by lies, character assassination, false alarm, wild allegations, and lately visual simulation, all in the desperation to deceive and misdirect the judgment of the electorates.
“We have with us an opposition party, which has been deploying all manner of schemes to derail and compromise the electoral process. Today, if the APC is not instigating violence or threatening democracy and our very existence as a nation, the party is busy procuring criminal hi-tech to hack into INEC’s data-base or clone the Permanent Voters Card (PVC).
“The next day, the same party would connive with some unscrupulous electoral officers to deny non-indigenes in some select states their PVCs while busy making bogus promises to the electorates”, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, said at a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday.
The PDP also faulted what it described as the opposition’s promise to create 740, 000 direct jobs in each of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory within one year, with one million jobs for Igbo youths within the same period.
Continuing, Metuh said: “The APC has also promised to provide free education, daily free meals for millions of Nigerian school children, free tertiary education, free health care and free houses to Nigerians. The opposition knows too well that this is unrealistic yet they prefer to brandish falsehood.
“The APC should explain to Nigerians how they would fulfill their promises with the prevailing 40 per cent drop in national income and dwindling oil price in the international market”.
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