President Muhammadu Buhari has ruled out the payment of N5,000 monthly allowances to unemployed youths in the country as promised by his party, the All Progressives Congress, ahead of the 2015 presidential election.
Buhari’s statement, which dismissed the N5,000 as largesse, has drawn the ire of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, which described the declaration by the President as an abandonment by the APC of the promise it made to Nigerians.
The President’s Saudi pronouncement contrasts sharply with those of some APC government officials who had, at different times and on various occasions, assured Nigerians that the fund to implement the promised allowance had been provided for in the 2016 Budget, which is currently before the National Assembly.
The President, who is on a one-week official visit to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, said during an interactive session in Saudi Arabia that he could not pay those not employed.
He said he had a “slightly different priority” from the position of his party on the payment of N5, 000 to unemployed youths, which he described as “largesse.”
The President said rather than paying unemployed youths, his administration would build infrastructure and empower able-bodied men to work.
“This largesse, N5,000 for the unemployed, I have got a slightly different priority. I would rather do the infrastructure, the school and correct them and empower agriculture, mining so that every able-bodied person can go and get work instead of giving N5, 000 to those who don’t work,” Buhari declared.
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