October 4, (THEWILL) – To achieve the desired development, every young Nigerian should have a realistic pathway – from learning to earning, writes SAM DIALA
A nation can survive a shortage of oil. It can survive a temporary fall in foreign reserves. It can even recover from a fiscal crisis. What it cannot afford to lose is the productive potential of its young people.
Defining Demographic Moment
Nigeria is approaching a defining demographic moment. With more than 220 million people and nearly 68 percent of its population below the age of 30, the country possesses one of the world’s largest reservoirs of youthful human capital. The African Development Bank describes this demographic structure as a potentially historic opportunity. But opportunity is not the same thing as achievement. A young population becomes an economic dividend only when young people are healthy, educated, skilled, employed and able to create value.
Nigeria therefore faces a fundamental choice: will its young population become the engine of economic transformation, or will millions of young Nigerians remain trapped between inadequate education, weak skills, unemployment, informal work and poverty? The answer will determine not merely the future of Nigerian youths, but the future of Nigeria itself.
The evidence is sobering.
The World Bank’s 2026 human-capital assessment estimates that existing deficits in health, education and workplace skills are costing Nigeria 111 per cent of its future labour earnings. In other words, the country is not simply failing to provide some young Nigerians with opportunities; it is destroying a substantial portion of the economic value that today’s children and young people could generate throughout their working lives.
Nigeria’s education pillar score of 64 is also significantly below the 88 median for lower-middle-income countries. This should fundamentally change how Nigeria understands youth empowerment.
Youth empowerment should not mean distributing small grants, organising occasional training workshops or handing young people certificates that do not translate into income. It should mean building the capabilities, opportunities and economic systems that enable young Nigerians to become productive citizens, entrepreneurs, skilled workers, innovators and employers of labour.
Real Crisis Bigger Than Unemployment
One of the weaknesses in Nigeria’s youth debate is the excessive focus on the unemployment rate. Unemployment matters, but it does not capture the full extent of youth economic exclusion.
The National Bureau of Statistics reported that 15.6 percent of Nigerians aged 15–24 were neither in employment, education nor training (NEET). That represented about 6.5 million young people. The rate was higher among females, at 17.3 per cent, compared with 14.1 per cent for males.
These figures represent more than people without jobs. They represent young human beings whose productive potential is being left idle. There is another dimension. Nigeria’s labour market is overwhelmingly informal. Earlier NBS labour-force data showed informal employment accounting for more than 90 per cent of employment. This means that simply telling young Nigerians to “get a job” is inadequate. Many already work. They sell goods, repair phones, farm, drive, sew clothes, provide digital services, trade online, work in family businesses and operate small enterprises.
The problem is that too many are trapped in low-productivity work. A young person working 12 hours a day without access to finance, technology, markets, formal training or productive assets may technically be employed, yet remain poor.
This distinction is critical. Youth development must therefore move from counting jobs to measuring productivity, income, resilience and upward mobility.
Education-to-Employment Disconnect
Nigeria has spent decades expanding access to formal education, but access alone does not guarantee employability.
A university certificate may demonstrate that someone completed a programme. It does not necessarily demonstrate that the graduate can solve a business problem, operate modern machinery, analyse data, develop software, manage a production line, maintain industrial equipment or create a commercially viable enterprise.
The World Bank’s 2026 human-capital report notes that Nigerian student test scores in 2025 remained below their 2010 level. It also identifies workplace learning and apprenticeships as important mechanisms for building productive skills. Evidence from Nigeria shows that large-scale apprenticeship interventions have increased young people’s earnings and skills. This provides an important lesson: Nigeria must stop treating the classroom as the only place where human capital is produced.
The education system must become more connected to the productive economy. A young Nigerian should be able to learn in a classroom, laboratory, workshop, farm, factory, technology hub and workplace.
Universities and polytechnics should work with manufacturers, banks, technology companies, agricultural businesses, construction firms, energy companies and creative industries to identify the skills they actually require. Technical and vocational education must also be repositioned.
For decades, vocational education was treated by many families as an inferior alternative to university education. That perception is economically damaging. Germany’s industrial strength, for example, is partly supported by sophisticated vocational and apprenticeship systems. Nigeria cannot build an industrial economy while treating the technicians who will operate its machines as second-class citizens.
A young Nigerian who can maintain industrial equipment, install solar systems, repair electric vehicles, operate precision agricultural machinery or manage a modern manufacturing process should be regarded as an economic asset.
Digital Skills: From Consumption to Production
Nigeria’s young population has one enormous advantage: its familiarity with technology.
But digital inclusion must go beyond social media consumption. Nigeria needs millions of young people who can use technology to produce, not merely consume.
That means expanding training in software development, data analytics, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud computing, digital marketing, product management, animation, robotics and other emerging fields.
The Federal Government’s Three Million Technical Talent initiative is an important step in this direction. The programme targets three million Nigerians for advanced digital skills, covering areas including software development, data analysis, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and related fields.
But scale alone will not guarantee success.
The real test should be what happens after training? How many trainees secure employment? How many become freelancers earning foreign exchange? How many establish businesses? How many are connected to international clients? How many create jobs for others?
The lesson is straightforward: Nigeria should measure empowerment by economic outcomes, not by the number of people who attend training programmes.
A certificate is not empowerment if it does not improve a person’s ability to earn.
READ ALSO:
Finance Must Follow Skills
Perhaps the biggest weakness in youth empowerment programmes is the separation between skills and capital. Nigeria may train a young person to become a fashion designer, software developer, farmer, welder or food processor. But if that individual cannot access affordable finance, equipment, workspace and markets, the training may produce little economic value.
Youth empowerment must therefore become a continuum: Training without finance is incomplete. Finance without skills is risky. Skills and finance without markets are unsustainable. This is why government, banks, development-finance institutions and private investors must rethink youth finance.
Instead of distributing politically attractive small grants, Nigeria should develop structured youth-enterprise finance built around viable businesses.
A young entrepreneur should be able to graduate through stages that go through the following cycle:
training → apprenticeship → business incubation → seed capital → working capital → market access → expansion finance.
Banks should also be encouraged to use alternative credit assessment models. A young entrepreneur without conventional collateral should not automatically be regarded as unbankable.
Digital transaction records, business cash flows, invoices, purchase histories and other forms of verifiable economic activity can increasingly provide evidence of creditworthiness.
The objective should not be to make young people permanently dependent on government grants. It should be to make them bankable.
Agriculture: Empowering the Young Farmer
Agriculture offers perhaps Nigeria’s largest opportunity to combine youth empowerment with national development. Yet many young Nigerians do not see agriculture as a modern business. That must change.
The young farmer of the future should not merely cultivate crops and wait for middlemen. He or she should understand irrigation, mechanisation, improved seeds, soil management, digital marketplaces, storage, logistics, food processing and export standards. Youth agricultural programmes should therefore focus on value chains rather than farming alone.
A young person may create greater economic value by processing tomatoes than by cultivating them.
Another may earn more by building a cold-chain logistics business than by owning a farm.
Another may provide agricultural data services through drones and satellite imagery.
Another may develop a digital platform connecting farmers to buyers.
This is the kind of empowerment Nigeria needs: one that transforms young people from participants in an economy into builders of economic systems.
The Missing Ingredient: Markets
Too many empowerment programmes concentrate on the supply side. They teach young people skills and provide some equipment, but pay insufficient attention to who will buy what they produce. This is a fundamental mistake.
A trained tailor needs customers; a trained software developer needs clients, a farmer needs buyers, a food processor needs distribution while a young manufacturer needs access to supply chains.
Therefore, government procurement should become a major instrument of youth development. A defined percentage of eligible public procurement could be opened to qualified youth-led enterprises, with transparent standards to prevent political capture.
Large corporations could also be encouraged to develop supplier-development programmes that deliberately integrate qualified youth-owned businesses into their value chains. This would create something more valuable than grants: recurring demand.
Women and the Youth Empowerment Equation
Youth empowerment cannot succeed if young women remain on the margins. The NBS data showing a higher NEET rate among young women demonstrates the gender dimension of youth exclusion. This is not merely a social-justice issue. It is an economic issue.
When a young woman lacks education, skills, finance or employment opportunities, Nigeria loses her potential income, taxes, innovation and productivity. Conversely, empowering a young woman can generate benefits that extend beyond the individual.
Evidence from Nigeria’s human-capital programmes demonstrates that targeted interventions can produce meaningful outcomes. The World Bank reports that its adolescent-girls programme had provided improved school infrastructure, scholarships, digital literacy and safe-space programmes to millions of girls and young women.
Youth policy must therefore deliberately address barriers affecting young women, including access to finance, digital tools, education, childcare, safe transportation and markets.
Viable Productivity Empowerment
Nigeria does not necessarily need another youth empowerment scheme with another acronym. It needs a national youth productivity compact that brings together government, private companies, financial institutions, educational institutions and development organisations.
Its objective should be simple:
Every young Nigerian should have a realistic pathway from learning to earning. Such a compact should have five measurable pillars.
– First: Foundational Skills
Every young Nigerian should acquire strong literacy, numeracy, digital literacy and problem-solving skills.
– Second: Market-Relevant Skills
Training should be determined increasingly by labour-market demand rather than by the availability of training providers.
The World Bank’s analysis of Nigerian online job vacancies provides an important foundation for identifying skills demanded by employers.
– Third: Work Experience
Apprenticeships, internships and industry placements should become integral components of tertiary and vocational education.
Young people should not graduate with certificates but without workplace experience.
– Fourth: Enterprise Finance
Youth-owned businesses should have access to appropriately structured capital, mentorship and business-development support.
– Fifth: Market Access
Government and large businesses should create pathways for qualified youth enterprises to enter supply chains and export markets.
The success of the compact should then be measured by outcomes: employment, earnings, business survival, exports, productivity, patents, formalisation and jobs created.
Private Sector Must Be at the Centre
Government cannot create enough jobs for Nigeria’s growing youth population.
The African Development Bank has noted the structural challenge across Africa: only about three million formal-sector jobs are created annually while 10–12 million young people enter the labour market each year.
The implication is profound:
The private sector must become an active partner in youth development. Manufacturers should expand apprenticeships; banks should develop youth-focused credit products, while telecommunications companies should support digital skills.
Also, technology companies should provide internships and certification, while gribusinesses should integrate young farmers into supply chains, as exporters should train young entrepreneurs to meet international standards.
In the same vein, large corporations should open supplier-development opportunities to youth-led enterprises. In short, youth empowerment must become part of the architecture of economic growth.
Beyond the ‘Giveaway’ Culture
There is also a cultural dimension. Nigeria must abandon the idea that empowerment means receiving something from government. Not really. True empowerment is the opposite of dependency.
If a young Nigerian receives ₦500,000 and spends it without developing a sustainable income stream, the intervention may provide temporary relief but little development.
If another receives training, mentorship, equipment, finance and market access and subsequently employs five people, the intervention has generated a multiplier effect.
That is the distinction between welfare and empowerment.
Welfare protects people from hardship.
Empowerment gives people the capacity to overcome hardship.
Nigeria needs both—but its long-term development strategy must prioritise the second.
A Generation That Should Not Be Wasted
Nigeria’s demographic structure gives it a rare opportunity.
The African Development Bank estimates that Africa’s working-age population will expand by hundreds of millions in the coming decade. The Bank argues that the continent can reap a demographic dividend if young people are equipped with the right skills and provided with decent, sustainable employment at scale.
But demographics do not automatically produce prosperity.
A large youthful population without jobs, skills and opportunity can become a demographic burden. Also, a large youthful population with quality education, productive employment, entrepreneurship, technology and access to capital can become the foundation of an economic miracle.
Nigeria therefore needs to make a historic transition—from youth management to youth investment; from youth dependency to youth productivity; from certificates to competencies; from grants to enterprise; and from programmes to measurable outcomes.
The central question should no longer be: How many young people did we empower?
It should be:
How many young Nigerians became more productive because of what we did?
That is the standard by which every youth programme should be judged.
Nigeria’s young people are not a problem waiting to be solved.
They are an enormous productive asset waiting to be unlocked.
The country’s future factories, farms, technology companies, hospitals, laboratories, creative industries and export businesses are already sitting in classrooms, workshops, markets and homes across the country.
What is missing is not potential. What is missing is the system that converts potential into productivity.
The World Bank’s warning that Nigeria’s human-capital deficits are costing the country 111 per cent of future labour earnings should therefore be read not merely as a statistic, but as a national alarm.
Every year a young person remains without quality education, useful skills, decent work or productive capital is a year of lost national wealth. On the other hand, every young person successfully moved from dependency to productivity represents a new worker, entrepreneur, taxpayer, innovator, employer or community leader. That is the real meaning of youth empowerment.
It is not about giving young people something to do. It is about giving them the capability, capital and opportunity to build something that matters. And for Nigeria, there may be no greater development investment than getting that right.
“There are millions of Nigerian youths who desire to be self-employed. But the enabling environment is not there. Give them electricity, fix the roads and fight insecurity. Leave the rest for them,” said Mike Akannor, a development economist.
Nestle Nigeria’s Example
Nestlé Nigeria Plc has continued to strengthen youth empowerment and technical education in Nigeria through its Technical Training Initiative, with over ₦6 billion invested in vocational and industrial skill development over the last 15 years.
The company in May 2026 celebrated the graduation of 20 new trainees from its Abaji Factory Technical Training Centre, adding to the growing number of young Nigerians benefiting from the programme across its training centres in Agbara, Abaji, and Flowergate in Sagamu.
Since the initiative began in 2011, more than 309 Nigerians have received professional training in engineering, manufacturing, and food technology, helping many secure stable employment opportunities in the manufacturing sector.
The Nestlé Technical Training Initiative is a free vocational and industrial training programme created to equip Nigerian youths with practical technical skills needed in today’s workforce.
The 18-month programme combines:
Classroom learning
Practical industrial training
Hands-on engineering experience
Manufacturing operations training
Food technology education
At the end of the programme, trainees receive the internationally recognised City and Guilds of London Technicians’ Certification, making them more employable both in Nigeria and internationally.
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
