Permanent Secretary Establishment, Rivers State, Asoelu Gayamos representing Head of Service, Rivers State (right) presenting sourvenire to retired NUJ member, Mr Jemina Amachree (left) during the NUJ Tide chapel send-forth of its retired members/seminar on Life Before & After Retirement in the board room of Rivers State Newspaper Corporation, last Wednesday. Pix: Egberi .A. Sampson

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday said 80 per cent of Nigerian youths are still unemployed.
This is despite repeated figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) stating that the Nigerian economy had been creating millions of jobs in the past years.
Only last week, the NBS announced that the economy created about 1.2 million jobs in 2013 fiscal year.
But the Special Assistant on Sustainable Banking, CBN, Dr. Aisha Mahmood, disclosed that unemployment was still a severe threat to Nigeria’s economy.
Mahmood spoke while delivering a paper on Nigerian Sustainable Banking Principle during the 2014 World Environment Day programme organised by the Federal Ministry of Environment in Abuja.
She said, “As the population is growing, the resources that we all depend on, the food, energy, water, is declining. The demand for these resources will rise exponentially by the year 2030, with the world needing about 50 per cent more food, 45 per cent more energy and 30 per cent more water.
“In Nigeria, there is the issue of youth and employment. 70 per cent of the 80 million youths in Nigeria are either unemployed or underemployed. We are all witnesses to what happened recently during the immigration recruitment exercise and this is simply because 80 per cent of the Nigerian youth are unemployed,” she added.
Mahmood noted that currently Nigeria’s economy is the largest in Africa, adding that the country is using fossil fuel to achieve this growth trajectory.
She stated that Nigeria’s economic growth was as a result of its abundant oil reserves, and warned that the flaring of gas from oil may negatively affect citizens in the country if not properly managed.
She said, “Nigeria has been flaring gas since the discovery of oil in the 1950s. We produce and burn about 20 billion cubic meters of gas annually and this is enough to meet our energy need. Remember we said we don’t have electricity, whereas we can provide electricity with this gas that we flare. And also when we burn this gas, we produce green house gases that affect our livelihood and the livelihood of people that live around that area.”
The CBN special assistant also lamented the high number of persons living below the poverty line in Nigeria as well as the about 120 million persons in the country that still lack access to electricity.
According to her, the above reasons were some key issues why the financial sector came together to develop and adopt the Nigerian Sustainable Banking Principle.
In her remarks, the Minister of Environment, Mrs. Laurentia Mallam, explained that the 2014 WED was targeted to address climate change and the impact of sea level rise on the environment.
She said, “In Nigeria, the impacts of climate change are manifested by erosion and landslides in the East, drought and desertification in the North, rising sea levels in the coastal areas and flooding across the nation. The transformation agenda of Mr. President in the environment sector is aimed at addressing all forms of land degradation through specialized projects.”
Meanwhile, two days after assumption of office, the new Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin I. Emefiele, has kept his promise to unfold his agenda, yesterday.
Addressing a world press conference at CBN Headquarters in Abuja, Emefiele promised that his administration would create a People-Centered Central Bank and ensure financial system stability.
He equally promised to maintain exchange rate stability and macro-economic stability. On monetary policy, Governor Emefiele said: “We shall pursue a gradual reduction in interest rates.”
Emiefele promised to pursue a gradual reduction in key interest rates, include the unemployment rate in monetary policy decisions; maintain exchange rate stability and aggressively shore up foreign exchange reserves.
The CBN governor also pledged to strengthen risk-based supervision mechanism of Nigerian banks to ensure overall health and banking system stability; and build sector-specific expertise in banking supervision to reflect loan concentration of the banking industry.
He observed inadequate trigger thresholds from a macro-prudential perspective, and said he would consider and announce measures to effectively address this anomaly.
Emiefele further said he would abolish fees associated with limits on deposits and reconsider ongoing practice in which all fees associated with limits on withdrawals accrue to banks alone; and introduce a broad spectrum of financial instruments to boost specific enterprise areas in agriculture, manufacturing, health, and oil and gas.
According to him, the CBN under his watch would establish Secured Transaction and National Collateral Registry as well as establish a National Credit Scoring System that would improve access to information on borrowers, assist lenders to make good credit decisions; and build resilient financial infrastructure that serves the needs of the lower end of the market, especially those without collateral.
He added that the CBN would renew vigorous advocacy for the creation of commercial courts for quick adjudications on loan and related offences.
Emiefele appealed to Nigerians to cooperate with the CBN in its bid to ensure a better economic prospect for the country, saying: “We must, by now, have been tired of hearing people talk about the ‘potentials’ of Nigeria. Now is the time to live that dream. I truly believe that working together, we can achieve our goals and give Nigerians the chance to live longer, better and more fulfilled lives.”