…Says digital training is the new normal to provide jobs and save economy
…Banks in the country are healthier
Former chief economist of Zenith Bank Plc., Marcel Okeke, has raised an alarm over graduate unemployment in the country, which he said has reached over 20 million mark.
Marcel Okereke
In an exclusive interview with Newdawnngr, Okeke warned that only a deliberate retraining of the millions of unemployed graduates in skill acquisition could make the country address the deepening economic crisis now compounded by the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic.
As for him, the after effect of the COVID-19 has produced a new normal for the country, which he said could be resolved by the digitalisation of economy from the retraining of unskilled graduates for a digitalised market which he said “has become our new normal”.
In an answer to a question on the economic challenges posed by the Covid-19, he said, to arrest the tough situation brought by the nose diving such that with the unemployment rate moving from 23% to 27%, has posed a serious challenge, which could bet resolved by deploying the ministry of communication and digital economy to rearrange and reorientate the unskilled graduates to acquire digitalised skills to cope with the new normal.
Said he,”With the outset of COVID-19, we have entered a new normal the new digital economy has posed a big challenge which should motivate us to create a new market,new products and entered the new economy.
Anybody anywhere is nothing who cannot receive the kind of training and cannot enter the new normal. It calls for serious adjustments and acquisition of required skills to survive the new normal”.
Still on reducing graduate unemployment he advised that for today’s graduate to succeed, “they must acquire digital skill required for the new economy the issue is getting the right skill now,that should be the focus like training in entrepreneurship,to set up businesses for themselves.in all a lot of professionals have to retrain themselves to survive”.
Okeke,who heads the Mascot Consult,a multi disciplinary consultancy outfit said it is an understatement for the World Bank to warn of a pending recession when the country is already in the midst of recession.
” Let me tell you,we are already in recession. The Gross Domestic Product(GDP) in the last quarter of 2019 was 2.55% and first quarter of this year it dipped further to 1.8% and now it is -6.1 in the second segment of the second quarter.
That is quite a big drop and it is quite huge.it is quite obvious that we are in recession it is not a question of World bank saying it,we are already in it” he declared.
However, in spite of the vagaries in the economy Okeke does not for see any further acquisition or stress within the banking institution.
He described the COVID-19 pandemic as a period during which all the banks got maximum benefits as a fall out of their embrace of technology adding,” the banks are all doing well as they are all programmed to be doing well.the banking business have embraced digital economy and deployed technology which has enable them to stand above the waters.they are getting their money.everyone of them is involved as they have leverage technology to make more money.I don’t see any of them going into any merger.
Still on the role of the banks,he observed that before now the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation(NDIC) has conducted stress test for the for the banks adding, “the result does not show that any bank is distressed”.
…Okeke, a former economic adviser to Zenith Bank Nigeria Plc., spoke to newdawnngr recently. Full interview on Thursday, August 26, 2020.
