Delta PDP Berates APC Over Attack on the State Govt Initiated Rural Youth Skill Acquisition Programme

Tochukwu Eluwa-Delta

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State berates the opposition APC in the State over its attack on the recently launched Rural Skill Acquisition Programmed initiated by the State government.

In a statement released to the press and personally signed by the State PDP publicity secretary Dr. Ifeanyi M. Osuoza ,he said the party wishes to call attention once again to the unrelenting lies of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the State. In furtherance of its sworn decision not to see anything good in the soaring PDP administration in the State.Incidentally, while APC is sweating unsuccessfully to paint the government in a bad light, the people of the State have come to terms with the opposition party’s falsehood spun in telltale garbs.
This time, the APC reached to its bagful of deceitful inventions aimed to hoodwink members of the public into believing its spin in a press release titled: “Rural Youths Skill Acquisition (RYSA) Programme, a Poisoned Chalice.- Delta APC,’ and signed by its publicist, Mr. Sylvester Imonina. In the statement, the opposition party, as usual, insinuated that the heavily publicized skill acquisition programme put together for the benefit of all interested youth in the rural areas of the State, was meant for only PDP members, “but clothed with the garment of non-partisanship in order to deceive unsuspecting members of the public that the government of Delta State cares for all Deltans”. Haba APC.!

APC’s slant is to make people believe that Information at its disposal is that “if one is not identified by a PDP top-notch in any of the Local Government Areas in the State, he or she is informed that the forms have been exhausted;” and that the form is given to only PDP members. Of a truth, this is a concoction from the pit of hell; an absolute yarn spun by a cruel propagandist to advance a hate cause.

The truth of the matter is that:

(1). The Rural Youth Skill Acquisition(RYSA) Programme is designed for rural youths across the 270 Wards who have acquired some training on the designated skillset of the RYSA Programme.

(2). The Ministry of Youth Development in March, 2020 embarked on Local Government Council Tours to enlighten Community Youth Associations on the Ministry’s Programme especially on the need for them to encourage youths in their community to embrace Government programmes.

(3). In keeping with its mandate, the Ministry of Youth Development has continuously engaged Community Youth Association Presidents, Youth Councils and the various youth organizations to enlighten them on Government policies and programmes as it relates to youth development.

(4). It is important to note that for the disbursement of forms and the registration process, the Ministry is using the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) platform in the State to ensure neutrality.

(5). For accessibility and ease of registration, the Ministry created Desk Offices at the Local Government Council Headquarters.

From the foregoing, it can be seen that the Ministry of Youth Development went on a tour of the local governments to sensitise the people, especially youths, about the Rural Youth Skill Development Programme and on the need to embrace it.

In the process, the Ministry continuously engaged Community Youth Association Presidents, Youth Councils, and the various youth organizations to enlighten them on government policies and programmes as it relates to youth development.

In our various communities, the question to ask APC is: do the youth associations in the communities have political segmentation? Everyone knows that community youth associations in the various localities embrace all youths without discrimination, and it is, therefore, a surprise that APC singled out Udu Local Government as the only place of the alleged discrimination.

We see this as an unfounded allegation that exists only in the infantile imagination of the APC, especially given the fact that the disbursement of forms and the registration process was carried out using the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) platform in the State to ensure neutrality. Is APC saying that NYSC, a Federal Government institution cannot be trusted to be neutral?

The point to make is that Delta APC, rather than see value in the programme with a potential to make entrepreneurs out of the youths, and encourage its supporters to embrace it for their individual benefits, the party and its propagandists only saw it as an opportunity to play dirty politics just to score a wicked and debased political point.

We call on the youths across the 270 wards not to fall for the antics of the unscrupulous APC leadership that has no plans for them; they should see this as a trick and the real poisoned chalice to deceive and use them as a pawn to play demeaning politics and settle cheap political scores.

We urge the youths to ignore the antics of the APC and embrace the programme that has been ingeniously designed to take them out of the labour market and transform their lives for the better by making them prosperous entrepreneurs for a stronger Delta,he said .