When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced the National Industrial Manpower Development Policy, it wasn’t just another government plan with a long name. At its heart, it’s about preparing Nigerians with the skills our industries desperately need and making sure people can actually get good jobs in the process.
He made the declaration in his keynote address at the opening of the National Industrial Manpower Summit (NIMS) 2025, held at the State House Conference Centre, Abuja.
Represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, the President said Nigeria must urgently invest in its citizens or face dire consequences.
For years, Nigeria has talked about industrialization, but there’s been one big problem: the skills gap. We have millions of young people, yet many companies complain they can’t find the right talent. This policy aims to fix that.
Nigeria’s economy is full of potential. We have oil, agriculture, a growing tech scene, and a huge population. But without skilled workers, industries can’t grow.
The summit, themed “Manpower Development: The Bridge Between Potential and Productivity,” gathered government officials, industry leaders, academia, and international partners to develop actionable recommendations for workforce development.
“For a nation with a median age of about seventeen, Nigeria is an incredibly young country. This youthfulness is a gift, but it is also a responsibility. We must make our young people not just a demographic statistic but a central component of our policy-making process,” President Tinubu said.
He told participants: “An improvement in human capital, along with infrastructure and sound policy, is the bridge between development and setback in every nation. We cannot afford to divest from our people because the world will not pause to wait for us.”
Our mission is to align the education and training of our young people, and indeed the larger workforce, with the needs of industry. We must reverse the mismatch between what our institutions produce and what our economy requires. This cannot be realized unless we foster robust collaboration between the public and private sectors to prepare young Nigerians for the demands of today’s job market,” he added.
There is a high level of graduate unemployment as many young Nigerians leave school with no training and job ready skills and industries depend on imports. Importing foreign workforce as machine operators to engineers since the local workforce is under-trained. The need to improve the current training is in light of previous programs that have had little long lasting impact because of inadequate funding, implementation and lack of relevance with current industry requirements.
