Vice President Kashim Shettima has warned that the country’s status as one of the world’s youngest nations will be meaningless without deliberate institutional investment to match its demographic scale.
Mr Shettima gave the warning on Monday in Abuja during the Abuja Dialogue 2026, organised by the Office of the Vice-President and Lagos State’s Lateef Jakande Leadership Academy.
Mr Shettima said the country’s demographic profile must no longer be treated as a rhetorical point in public discourse, but as a strategic reality requiring policy attention at the highest levels of governance.
“We are one of the youngest nations on earth. That fact should not be treated as a line for conferences or a statistic for brochures.
”It is a national condition with profound consequences,” he said.
According to him, the nation’s growing youth population risks becoming a liability without urgent investment in education, skills, and opportunities to drive sustainable national development.
He, therefore advocated a deliberate and forward-looking framework for youth leadership development.
Shettima said the future of Nigeria would depend not merely on the abundance of its natural resources or the ambition of government programmes.
He said the nation’s future would depend on the systems built to sustain leadership continuity and national development.
The vice president described the Abuja Dialogue as an important national platform for reflection at a time when governments around the world are being forced to respond to rapid changes in technology, economy and public expectations.
According to him, leadership in the present age cannot be casual or accidental, but must be cultivated through structured pathways that prepare young people for responsibility.
“Youth leadership must be understood with clarity. It is not a ceremonial handover waiting for age to perform its arithmetic.
” It is a structured process through which young men and women are prepared, trusted, integrated, and supported within the institutions that shape our future.
“This new framework must go beyond slogans and applause to reshape the design of education, public service, enterprise and civic institutions,” he said
Shettima emphasised the need for gradual pathways through which young Nigerians can assume responsibility.
The vice president commended the Lateef Jakande Leadership Academy and Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu for convening the dialogue.
Earlier, Sanwo-Olu said the dialogue sent a signal to every state government, development partner, and young Nigerians that the federal government recognised the strategic importance of youth leadership development.
He explained that at the heart of the Lagos leadership ecosystem was the Lateef Jakande Leadership Academy
Sanwo-Olu said the academy was not merely a fellowship but a talent incubator where young Nigerians received real public sector immersion.
The governor called for commitment, policy frameworks, budgetary allocations, and the kind of political will that turns good intentions for young people into functioning institutions.
The Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Sen. Ibrahim Hadejia, said the significance of the dialogue was in its focus on youth development, preparing them for leadership with knowledge, discipline and enthusiasm.
”Youth leadership cannot be approached as a symbolic gesture but a deliberate idea that recognises leadership as infrastructure that determines the strength of institutions,” he said
The Minister of Youth Development, Mr Ayodele Olawande, said the timing of the dialogue was apt.
Olawande noted that Nigerian youths are prepared, ready and committed to playing their roles in the advancement and development of the country.
He said President Bola Tinubu remained committed to providing the necessary platforms and enabling environment for the youths to fulfil their destinies.
The Executive Secretary of the academy, Ayisat Agbaje-Okunade, said the partnership between the federal government and the Lagos state government placed the youth at the centre of national conversation.
She added that the dialogue presented the opportunity to build national consensus, align institutions and move youth leadership from the margins of policy to the centre of development.
