Nigeria is now well-positioned to build a world-class oil and gas workforce, backed by growing investor confidence and an unprecedented pipeline of major projects heading toward Final Investment Decisions (FIDs).
Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), who stated this therefore pledged the commitment of the government to deepen support for the Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN) to help make that happen.
Lokpobiri spoke in his keynote address on Day Two, “Setting the Agenda” of the ongoing OGTAN Human Capital Development (HCD) Conference and Expo in Warri, Delta State.
He described Nigeria as an emerging global investment hub, attributing the shift to the incentive-driven reforms of President Bola Tinubu, which he said have improved the country’s competitiveness for international capital.
The ministers call reflects concern by the African Energy Chamber (AEC) which is canvassing for a concerted action to develop broader local content skills by African countries as the continent develops its hydrocarbon resources.
The Chamber said that as Africa develops its estimated 125.3 billion barrels of crude oil and 620 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to strengthen energy security and expand local economies, local-content frameworks are entering a new phase.
“Africa’s local content agenda is no longer just about listing companies on a page; it is about equipping domestic businesses with real skills, putting them to work on the ground, and holding them accountable to local laws all while maintaining an attractive environment for global investors. Local content must drive tangible industry growth, not act as a bureaucratic barrier,” stated NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the Chamber.
Governments are moving beyond requirements for local employment and procurement toward building domestic industrial capacity and strengthening digital compliance while maintaining an investment environment capable of delivering competitive returns for international partners.
The minister added that Nigeria’s relative regional stability, strategic location and proximity to major markets, including Europe, provide additional advantages for oil and gas investment and petroleum products distribution.
According to Lokpobiri, this unprecedented pipeline of projects moving toward FID will ultimately require professionals trained to globally competitive standards, much of that training to be delivered through OGTAN’s more than 400 members.
“Those human beings are members of the public who must have been trained by OGTAN… who are expected to have the competence to deliver those projects, not just for Nigeria, but for the entire world,” he said.
The minister further noted that many lecturers and resource persons across Nigerian universities and tertiary institutions are still working with materials that have not kept pace with a modern, AI-driven industry.
He emphasised that trainers themselves must be retrained to equip the next generation of engineers, technicians and other professionals with the skills the industry now demands.
“If the training system underpinning that capital is still operating on a fifty-year-old blueprint, the risk is that Nigeria’s newly de-risked capital arrives faster than its newly-promised workforce can be built,” he said.
Sen. Lokpobiri revealed that the federal government’s response to closing the gap is being channelled through the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act, in direct partnership with OGTAN, to strengthen training capacity nationwide.
“As government, what we do is see how we can support OGTAN members.
The government is committed to this, and we are doing it through NCDMB and the NOGICD Act,” he said.
Lokpobiri has therefore urged OGTAN to expand its focus continentally, noting that countries such as Angola, Congo and Gabon already depend on Nigerian-trained oil and gas professionals.
“The rest of Africa is depending on human resources from Nigeria, and someone must be responsible for training that human capital — not just for Nigeria,” he said.
He said government’s ambition is to develop Nigerian professionals capable of competing for oil and gas jobs globally, linking this human capital push directly to Nigeria’s broader ambition of building a $1 trillion economy.
“We will provide the enabling environment to raise human capital, not just for Nigeria, but to take over oil and gas jobs globally.”
Lokpobiri reaffirmed that NCDMB, under the NOGICD Act, holds a clear mandate to support capacity development, but acknowledged that government backing for OGTAN would need to be strengthened further to match the scale of human capital demand expected from the sector’s emerging investment cycle.
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Chika Izuora is a journalist with Leadership Media Group with over two decades of mainstream journalism experience. A Mass Communication graduate and alumnus of Pan Atlantic University (PAU), he has built outstanding expertise in the oil and gas industry alongside a versatile career as a journalist and author.
