Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emeifele, has warned that the country risked sliding back into recession if spiralling unemployment rate is not checked.
He said the country’s economic growth was not growing at par with its population growth.
Emefiele who spoke at the third Eminent Lecture Series organised by the University of Benin, said recent projection by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Nigeria would become the third most populated country after China and India should be takenseriously.
Speaking on: Beyond the Global Financial Crisis: Monetary Policy Under Global Uncertainty, he said ongoing trade war between the United States and China could throw the world into another recession.
Emefele said Nigeria has to contend with issues of increased unemployment rate, insecurity in parts of the country despite the apparent state of improvement in the exchange rate, foreign reserve and other economic indices.
He said with the improved yield in agriculture, the country has saved $800million on rice import bills
“There is global uncertainty that would unfortunately trigger another global crisis. The question therefore will be how are we as Nigerians particularly our leaders ready?
“Luckily we have exited recession, we have inflation trending downward from 18.72 per cent in 2017 to 11.37 per cent today, we have seen our reserves moving up, we have seen exchange rate stabilising but unfortunately we still have issues and those issues bother around unemployment rate,” he said.
Nation