Dr Yemi Kale, the Group Chief Economist & Managing Director of Research and Trade Intelligence at Afreximbank, , has firmly warned that the fast rising levels of unemployment in Nigeria is a ticking time bomb and should be considered as a national security threat.
Dr Kale revealed this at the 2025 Vanguard Economic Discourse, themed ‘Nigeria’s Economic Outlook 2025: Hardship and Pathways to Sustainable Recovery’, held in Lagos on Wednesday.
The National Bureau of Statistics also reports that the youth unemployment rate (those aged 15–24) fell sharply to 6.5% in the second quarter of 2024, down from 8.4% in the first quarter of 2024.
The NBS report read, “The unemployment rate is defined as the share of the labour force not employed but actively searching for and available for work. Unemployment is one of the components of labour underutilisation. The unemployment rate for Q2 2024 was 4.3 per cent, showing an increase of 0.1 percentage point compared to the same period last year.”
The former NBS DG Kale stated in a statement on Wednesday that “Nigeria’s demographic dividend runs the risk of turning into a demographic crisis if we don’t address unemployment and underemployment, which is over 53%.” Every year, four to five million young Nigerians join a labor market that isn’t producing enough jobs. This is a hazard to national security, not just an economic one.
“To address this, we need to invest in vocational and digital skills training tied to high-growth sectors. Expand credit and regulatory support for MSMEs and start-ups. Scale job-linked infrastructure projects in renewable energy, logistics, and agribusiness and incentivise private sector hiring through tax credits and wage subsidies.”
Kale identified low production, instability in rural regions, floods and climate shocks, and a lack of market access and infrastructure as contributing factors to the food insecurity that around 25 million Nigerians endure.
Kale issued a warning about the nation’s debt and economic sustainability because the debt service-to-revenue ratio is more than 40%.
He said “We need urgent interventions across the food value chain: rural road networks, cold storage, irrigation, security in farming belts, and better inputs. Solving this is not just about agriculture— it’s about survival, dignity, and national stability,”
“The solutions are not new. The evidence is overwhelming. What Nigeria has lacked is not insight but sustained political will, institutional discipline, and empathetic leadership that aligns reform with the realities of the people. It is time we stopped asking, what should we do? and instead asked, why haven’t we done it—and more importantly, how do we now do it decisively, consistently, and with integrity?”
To promote economic transformation in Nigeria, Dr. Tayo Aduloju, the CEO of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, urged greater cooperation between the public and private sectors.
According to Aduloju, genuine economic advancement occurs when the public and private sectors work together to accomplish particular objectives with distinct roles and accountability.
He stated, “In every case that Dr. Kale presented this morning in Brazil, Indonesia, and Malaysia. How these countries grew was that there was a consensus in the private sector and a consensus in government that we will co-deliver economic transformation.
“If we say today we want to transform the energy sector, the energy plan will have two sides: what government must do and what business must do, and accountability and responsibility mechanisms to check that everybody is doing what they are doing right.”
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