http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nasir-El-Rufai/393816480127?v=wall&story_fbid=129171570440377

Read your comments yesterday. Some say they prefer jobs to education. We forget that everything is connected to everything. Educated people are likelier to vote the right candidate and guard their vote. They are more likely to resist corruption and bad govt. When you vote wisely, guard your vote, resist corruption and bad govt in due course your country will be fixed and jobs and infrastructure will become a reality.

Mallam El-Rufai, I wish to defer a bit to your scale of preference. With all due respect, I doubt you really know what unemployment means. And in a country like ours without any form of social security for the jobless, there is no greater priority than creating jobs and stimulating the private sector for industrial growth. Even the few of us in gainful employment still have to provide from our wages the security and basic amenities that ought to be government's responsibility. What vote will an unemployed graduate cast that is more important than putting food on his table? It is for this reason that I fear the next generation might not only institutionalize corruption, but may go a step further to legalizing it. What other evidence do you need with the growing rise of kidnappings, militancy and all forms of youth unrest. And with thousands of graduates roaming our streets in search of non-existent jobs, every job interview attracts a multitude, some people faint in the process like what was seen in the last INEC test. Or the case where even a state government extorts thousands of youths in the guise of granting them jobs, which never come true. In the US for example, the unemployment rate was in an all-times high of 9.5% in April and the government has made the issue of unemployment a priority, and is addressing it with every government policy. Whereas Nigeria's (officially deflated) unemployment rate of 19.7% does not bother anyone - and I can assure you the figure is far beyond.

Well, you can't have one without the other. You need both.
Education is important, as important as job creation. You can't focus on education and ignore job creation, neither can you focus on job creation and ignore education. Period.

I agree with you that both are essential. Education is key. The truth is that the number of over-educated people in Nigeria is growing faster than the economy can absorb. Moreover, the quality of education in Nigeria is nothing to write home about. We have to really decide: in a scale of preference, which one should come first?

today a leader, tomorrow a wanted man and next tomorrow he's excaped from the country.
when the fate of over 150 million nigerians are left in the hands of unpredictable criminals like el rufai, tell me why we will not continue in our round about movement even at 100yrs.

I hope we can have BOTH at the same time, rather than having to chose one or the other.