Nigeria must create 4M jobs annually to ensure growth – Ambode

Lagos State Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode on Saturday said for Nigeria to meet its growth 

ambitions and achieve full economic potential, concerted efforts must be made to create at least 

four million jobs annually and as well jettison policies that stifle development.

Speaking at the opening session of the 9th Annual Bankers’ Committee Retreat of the Central 

Bank of Nigeria (CBN) held at Renaissance Hotel in Ikeja, Lagos, Governor Ambode said it was 

time for the government to review such policies that inhibit growth, and as well come up with a 

well-functioning low cost financial system that will work for all Nigerians.

While describing the theme of the retreat – “Improving Financial Access, Enabling Job Creation 

and Driving Inclusive Growth in Nigeria,” as apt, the Governor said same was at the heart of the 

nation’s economy and are important determinants of the country’s future prosperity, but that all 

hands must be on deck to create more jobs for the people and ensure 6.7 per cent annual growth 

rate. He said: “To meet our growth ambitions we need jobs. Figures from the National Bureau of 

Statistics show that in employment terms, from a labour force population of about 81million 

people, we currently have 11.5million people unemployed in Nigeria and 17million people under-

employed with the total employment is around 52.6million while the working age population grows 

by 3.7 per cent every year. So, to make a meaningful dent on un-employment and 

underemployment, and to reduce poverty (which is at over 60 per cent), we need to be creating at 

least four million jobs per year. “Where do banks fit into all of this? Well, the reality is if we do not 

have a well-functioning banking sector, all of this is not possible. Both investment and day-to-day 

commerce requires the intermediation of banks. And while someone outside of the formal financial 

sector can in some cases make a living, the reality is that incomes of the bottom of the pyramid 

are increased when we have better financial inclusion but we are not there yet.” The Governor, 

who particularly alluded to the strategy adopted in Kenya to deepen financial inclusion, said efforts 

must be made to ensure low cost access to banking services especially through mobile money.

 He

said it was painful that mobile money had been so slow to take off in Nigeria despite huge 

population, saying it remained very low, increasing from just 0.7million adults in 2014 to 0.9million 

in 2016, despite the fact that there were about 58.2million people who actually had mobile phones 

in 2016. Besides, Governor Ambode challenged the CBN, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance 

Commission (NDIC), commercial banks and other players in the financial system to decide the 

type of financial system that will really impact on employment and bring more people into the

 formal financial system. According to him, “This is where we should focus as a nation not the type 

of directives or decisions that actually try to stifle growth and commerce. One clear example is

 this; as a State Government, I want to take a commercial loan from the bank and they tell me I 

should go and get a letter from Debt Management Office (DMO); I should get approval from the

 Federal Ministry of Finance; I should go to CBN and so on. Who does that? “You want to 

accelerate growth and everything that I am doing even when I take loan from the bank; when I do 

bond and so on, I am only trying to reflate the economy. Each construction site that you see in 

Lagos, I am trying to create employment at the lower level so that the artisans, the bricklayers and 

so on can go home with N5,000. I need to do something in Badagry to make the people stay there 

and not come to the central Lagos and when you take the extra money outside the IGR, you are 

actually trying to help the economy to reflate itself and that is why you are able to excite yourself

 with the growth that you have seen in the third quarter that we say is 1.5 but that is not the 

number that we want. “So sometimes, government seems to shoot itself in the leg. Why should 

Lagos State go and be meeting DMO to say I want to take a commercial loan when 80 per cent of

 my IGR can pay the loan itself back? So, you see that there is some sense of homogeneity in the

 policies that we make but sometimes they are not really flexible and you end up coming back to 

say we want to create jobs but the things that create jobs are the things that we are actually 

working against and you create unnecessary competition in the system.” Responding to earlier

 comment by the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele on the inability of the Micro Small and 

Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) to access the N200billion fund earmarked for them, Governor 

Ambode said the easiest way to achieve same was to reduce the lending rate to about five per 

cent or lower. He said at the State level, his administration created the Employment Trust Fund 

through which about N10billion had been disbursed to the MSMEs at five per cent with over 6,000 

benefiting so far, saying the CBN could replicate such at the federal level for the overall benefit of 

the people and the system.