During Saturday’s inaugural West Africa Economic Summit (WAES) in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, President Bola Tinubu challenged regional leaders to leverage the subregion’s dynamic young population and vast natural wealth to achieve economic transformation through industrialisation, educational advancement, and technological innovation.
This was disclosed in a State House press release by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy.
In his keynote opening remarks, the Nigerian President characterised West Africa’s energetic youth demographic as the region’s most valuable strategic advantage.
“However, this demographic promise can quickly become a liability if not matched by investments in education, digital infrastructure, innovation, and productive enterprise,” he warned.
Tinubu stressed the critical importance of collaborative regional approaches, highlighting Nigeria’s ongoing commitments to skills enhancement, digital connectivity expansion, and youth empowerment initiatives.
“No one country can do this alone. Our prosperity depends on regional supply chains, energy networks, and data frameworks. We must design them together—or they will collapse separately,” he said.
The President issued an urgent appeal to dismantle commercial barriers throughout the subregion.
He voiced serious concerns about West Africa’s persistently low intra-regional trade levels, which remain under 10 per cent, warning that the region must “coordinate or collapse” amid intensifying global economic competition.
Addressing infrastructure development and investment strategies, the Nigerian leader advocated for West Africa to transcend traditional raw material exportation models and prioritise value-added industries:
Let us recognise that Africa was left behind in previous industrial revolutions. We cannot afford to miss the next one.
Our rare minerals power tomorrow’s green technologies, yet being resource-rich is not enough; we must also become value-chain smart and invest in local processing and regional manufacturing.
“The era of ‘pit to port’ must end. We must turn our mineral wealth into domestic economic value—jobs, technology, and manufacturing.”
As the current chairman of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, Tinubu emphasised private sector leadership in catalysing regional transformation.
“The fundamental transformation will not come solely from government, but from unleashing our people’s entrepreneurial spirit. Governments must provide the right environment—law, order, and market-friendly policies—while the private sector drives growth.”
The President challenged regional leaders to establish concrete, measurable commitments, stating:
“Our task is to find new and effective ways to invest in our collective future, improve the business climate, and create opportunities for our youth and women.
Let us emerge from this summit with actionable outcomes: a renewed commitment to ease of doing business, enhanced intra-regional trade, improved infrastructure connectivity, and innovative ideas that move our people from poverty to prosperity.”
Tinubu concluded by tasking summit attendees—including heads of state, policy architects, business executives, and development partners—with constructing an investment-ready, globally competitive, and economically resilient West Africa through visionary leadership, accountable governance, and unified action.
