The Consul General of the United States, John Bray said despite the news that the country was out of recession and recorded certain percentage of growth, the increase in population and employment rate was not commensurate, noting the need for job creation to sustain the growth and prevent falling back.
“What fascinates me in Nigeria every day is that every day they said that we are out the recession, and we have 4.9 percent growth.
What is the number of people that are entering the job line? Is growth keeping up with real growth of the population?
What we can talk all day long about United state of America strategic interest in Nigeria but the biggest concern united state has about Nigeria right now is demographics.
United Nation has projected that the population of Nigeria will more double it’s valued up in the year 2050,” Bray said.
While welcoming selected journalist at a Business Journalism Workshop organised by the Public Affairs Section of the US Mission Nigeria, the US Envoy noted that financial reporting play the crucial part in the government as they make sense of the figures, thus reiterating the importance of the workshop.
“As a financial reporter, your job is harder than any other guys. You’ve got to know more. It’s more than just getting all sides of the argument and issues.
You’ve got to know the numbers. You’ve got to understand how the budget works. You’ve got to be able to look at what CBN issues and be able to underline the core issues. You need to be smarter than the average journalist,” he said.
and then