Chibuzor Alli
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has warned that Nigeria risks losing its position in the emerging energy economy unless urgent action is taken to address the country’s widening technical and workforce skills gap.
The company’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Kazachiyang Nuhu, said the convergence of the Petroleum Industry Act, the Decade of Gas, growing participation by local operators and the global energy transition was creating demand for technical talent faster than Nigeria could develop it.
Nuhu spoke on Thursday at the Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria Human Capital Development Conference and Expo in Warri, Delta State.
He said rapid advances in artificial intelligence, digitalisation and automation were shortening skills cycles, while investment was increasingly shifting towards liquefied natural gas, cleaner energy sources and low-carbon opportunities.
He warned that Nigeria could lose its ability to participate effectively in the changing energy economy if its workforce was not urgently reskilled and repositioned.
“Reskill, reposition or risk becoming a spectator in our own industry,” he told stakeholders at the conference.
Nuhu identified workforce and skills shortages, an ageing workforce and brain drain, commonly referred to as ‘japa’, as some of the major challenges facing the industry.
He also pointed to a growing disconnect between academia and industry, particularly the gap between what is taught in educational institutions and the skills required by employers from day one.
Other challenges, he said, included weak safety culture, spills and gas flaring; vandalism, crude oil theft, surveillance and metering gaps; inadequate supplies of quality materials and equipment; ageing assets, reliability issues and project overruns.
He also cited shortages in digital oilfield and environmental, social and governance skills, as well as challenges involving refinery operations, product quality, LPG safety and trade finance.
Nuhu said addressing the challenges would require a fundamental change in the way human capital development was approached across the energy industry.
He said training should be linked more closely to production, safety, reliability and cost, rather than being based on generic manuals disconnected from current field realities.
He called for training programmes to be benchmarked against global standards and supported by technologies such as simulators, digital twins, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence.
“Every naira spent on training must translate to a safer plant, a skilled employee, and a stronger balance sheet,” he added.
The NNPC executive also disclosed that the company would change the way it engaged training providers, saying trainers must understand the direction of the industry.
“We will partner only with trainers who teach the industry we are becoming, not the one we are leaving behind,” he said.
He said NNPC was already developing its workforce through initial professional development, career pathways, industry exposure, leadership pipelines, mentorship and knowledge transfer.
NNPC seeks stronger local expertise
Nuhu said the ultimate measure of Nigerian content should be the ability of Nigerians to acquire the expertise needed to lead major projects to international standards.
“Not how many Nigerians were hired, but how many world-class Nigerians led the project.”
He said local content should therefore be measured by expertise rather than percentages, with future industry needs covering technical, digital, commercial and human capabilities.
These, he said, would include renewable energy integration, gas-to-power, artificial intelligence, predictive maintenance, energy economics, carbon markets, sustainable finance, adaptive leadership and systems thinking.
Nuhu challenged Nigeria to decide whether it would become a contributor or merely a consumer in the future energy economy.
He called on industry players, trainers and academia to move away from separate efforts and work towards a unified approach to developing the country’s energy workforce.
OGTAN seeks collaboration
The President of OGTAN, Chris Osarunmewense, said the association was seeking to sustain discussions on how Nigeria could develop a workforce capable of delivering on the promises of companies operating in the oil and gas industry.
Osarunmewense said human capital development was a continuous process that required the industry to recognise and nurture people’s potential.
“Human capital develops by progression. At OGTAN, therefore, we treasure the potential of people who have developed human capital in nature to effectively operate within the oil and gas industry,” the OGTAN boss said.
He said the conference was designed to bring stakeholders together to discuss ways of addressing skills shortages in the industry.
According to him, the decision to hold the 2026 conference in Warri rather than Lagos or Abuja was deliberate because of the city’s place in the history and development of Nigeria’s petroleum industry.
“For us, this choice was meaningful. Warri is not simply a venue; it is part of the history of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry,” he added.
Osarunmewense said the Niger Delta had remained at the heart of Nigeria’s petroleum industry for decades, with its history of exploration, production, processing, services, technical manpower and community development closely linked to the country’s wider energy economy.
He said OGTAN wanted international participants to see the Niger Delta not only as a region associated with petroleum production, but also as a centre of talent, enterprise, technical expertise, institutions, communities and human capital potential.
He said the association’s collaboration with the Petroleum Training Institute further strengthened Warri’s suitability for the conference, given the institute’s role in technical and professional training in the petroleum sector.
Osarunmewense said the industry’s human capital challenges could not be resolved by one stakeholder, stressing the need for cooperation across the value chain.
“The challenges before the industry are too complex for any single organisation to solve. The government alone cannot solve it. Regulators cannot solve it alone. Oil and gas companies cannot solve it alone. Training providers cannot solve it alone. Universities and technical institutions cannot do so alone either. We need collaboration across the value chain,” he stated.
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