The Nigerian Government has unveiled a national skills programme targeting 20 million youths in the country with jobs, training, and entrepreneurship opportunities by 2030, with at least 60 per cent of beneficiaries expected to be women.
Speaking during the inaugural board meeting of Generation Unlimited (GenU) Nigeria, Vice President Kashim Shettima described Nigeria’s youthful population as the nation’s superpower and comparative advantage in a rapidly ageing world.
This followed Vice President Shettima’s assumption of his role as chairman of the reactivated GenU Nigeria board, which has a mandate to connect millions of young Nigerians to employment by 2030. The meeting coincided with International Youth Day 2025, themed “Youth Innovation for a Sustainable Future.”
“With over 60 per cent of our population below the age of 25, we cannot afford to squander this asset. An advantage unrealised is merely potential wasted. We must refine it, we must invest in it, and we must channel it towards productive destinies,” Shettima said.
The Vice President warned that Nigeria’s “national skills ecosystem faces a trilemma” — too many young people excluded from the start, training disconnected from livelihoods, and inadequate infrastructure for large-scale hands-on learning.
“Another isolated training scheme will not deliver us from these constraints. What we need is systemic change — a new architecture built to last,” he added.
The centrepiece of the initiative is the Digital Access and Livelihoods Initiative (DALI), described as a demand-driven national talent pipeline linking foundational and work-readiness training directly to guaranteed jobs or enterprise pathways.
“We need a platform to unify government, private sector leaders, development partners, and the boundless energy of our youth under a single banner. This is a proposition to attract coordinated investment and replace fragmented efforts with a common front,” Shettima said.
He pledged that all training under the initiative would align with the National Skills Qualification Framework to ensure Nigerian youths have both the skills to work and the credentials to compete globally.
Charging the new board, in collaboration with UNICEF and other partners, to proceed with full development and implementation of DALI, the Vice President declared: **“Let this be the turning point. Let this be the day history remembers as the moment we stopped managing youth unemployment as an inevitable crisis and started unlocking the creative, entrepreneurial, and intellectual capital of our people.
“We owe young Nigerians jobs. We owe them hope. We owe them the future — not just promises, but proof that their country believes in them enough to invest in their success.”
Minister of Youth Development, Comrade Ayodele Olawande, said the administration’s vision was clear — to create jobs, bridge the skills gap, and empower young people through human capital development, not token gestures.
“Nigerian youths are not limited. We have the talent, creativity, and courage to thrive. What we need is a meaningful and enabling environment, and we must work together as one team to create and deliver real impact,” he said.
Special Assistant to the President on Strategy and Policy (Workforce Development), Rimamskeb Nuhu, noted that the government had identified three major challenges facing young Nigerians — foundational skills gap, livelihood disconnect, and infrastructure deficit.
Other stakeholders at the meeting highlighted achievements across GenU 9JA’s three pillars — Digital Learning and Connectivity, Workplace Readiness, and Youth Engagement and Empowerment.
UNICEF Nigeria Country Representative and GenU 9JA co-chair, Ms. Wafaa Saeed, said a key achievement was the formal recognition of Youth Agency Marketplace (YOMA) as Nigeria’s national youth opportunities aggregator, a one-stop digital platform connecting young people to skilling, innovation, volunteering, and economic pathways.
Launched in 2021, GenU 9JA is a Public-Private-Youth-Partnership platform targeting 20 million Nigerian youth by 2030, supporting their transition from learning to earning, productive work, and active citizenship.
PIAK