Nigeria May Slide Back To Recession

Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele has raised the alarm that the country might slide back to recession except urgent measures are taken to address the high rate of unemployment.

He said the country has made progress in the year under review but more efforts were needed to reduce the staggering unemployment rate.

“From some of my concluding remarks, you may have observed whether you like it or not, there is global uncertainty that will unfortunately most certainly lead to another crisis.

“The question could be, how are we, as Nigerians, particularly our leaders, I’m talking of monetary and fiscal policy authority, preparing our country for the next set of crisis?

“We have luckily exited recession, we have seen recession pending downward to about 18.72 percent in 2017 to about 11. 37 percent today.

“We have seen reserves moving up but unfortunately, we still have issues and those issues bother around unemployment rate and those issues bother around how do we prepare our country,” he said.

He expressed his concerns when he delivered the Eminent Persons’ Lecture Series with the theme: “Beyond the global financial crisis: Monetary policy under global uncertainty” at the University of Benin, yesterday.

The warning came exactly a week after he alerted Nigerians to expect tough and rough years.

“The road ahead is tough and rough. I want to appeal to our people to respect the policies of the country. We always put good policies in place, but implementation is a problem,” he stated when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, as part of his reconfirmation hearing, blamed part of the country’s woes on disrespect for the rule of law.

Emefiele, who explained how the CBN led the country out of recession, however, warned that going forward, saboteurs and others who flout economic policies of the government will be prosecuted. He said despite the policies put in place by the Federal Government, implementation was always a challenge.

He also warned against the nation’s growing population and explained that if not properly managed, it will become a liability.