By Juliet Alika

Industries around the world are facing a paradox: talent shortages in key sectors and rising unemployment in others. Developed nations struggle with ageing populations, while emerging markets grapple with youth unemployment. Artificial Intelligence is seen as a potential solution, improving productivity and job matching, but concerns remain about if it can be sustainable and inclusive.

Across industries, employers are having trouble finding the necessary talent at the right time, while millions remain underemployed or excluded. AI also risks displacing jobs, reinforcing bias, and widening inequality, benefiting developed nations and large firms over small businesses and developing economies. The challenge is ensuring AI addresses labour gaps ethically, inclusively, and in ways that strengthen the global workforce.ManpowerGroup’s 2025 Talent Shortage report reveals that for the first time in 10 years, businesses are reporting a decrease in skills shortages, with 76 per cent of employers reporting difficulty in filling roles due to a lack of skilled talent. The challenge is structural, affecting healthcare, logistics, engineering, and fast-growing digital fields. The global talent crunch is driven by converging forces: skills mismatches as qualifications are becoming irrelevant in evolving market demands, demographic shifts such as ageing populations in developed nations and youth unemployment in emerging economies, changing worker expectations: the desire for flexibility, purpose, and personal growth and the rapid technological disruption transforming job requirements.As companies scramble to keep pace with rapid change, the demand for future-ready talent is quickly outstripping the capacity of traditional education and workforce development models. What’s needed is investing in lifelong, modular learning that evolves with market needs; leveraging AI to enable dynamic skills mapping and personalised upskilling; strengthening partnerships between industry, education, and government; and expanding access to non-traditional and underrepresented talent pools. Ultimately, solving the talent crunch requires reshaping workforce systems for the jobs of tomorrow.AI is emerging as a transformative solution to global workforce challenges, offering tools to match, upskill, and mobilise talent. Beyond automating routine tasks, AI enables intelligent talent matching by analysing vast data on candidates, job descriptions, labour trends, and hiring outcomes. It considers hard skills, transferable capabilities, learning agility, and values alignment to deliver more inclusive and efficient hiring. However, this potential requires transparent implementation, bias audits, and integration into human-centred strategies to enhance, not replace, human judgment.AI also revolutionises personalised upskilling. Traditional one-size-fits-all training no longer meets evolving industry demands. AI-powered learning platforms assess current competencies, identify skill gaps, and deliver adaptive, modular content aligned with individual goals and shifting job requirements. This approach benefits employers by developing internal talent pipelines, reducing reliance on external recruitment, and increasing workforce agility. For employees, especially underrepresented groups, it democratises lifelong learning by making reskilling affordable, flexible, and accessible beyond traditional education barriers. At scale, personalised upskilling fosters resilience, adaptability, and career confidence amid disruption.Workforce planning and predictive insights represent another critical application. AI leverages predictive analytics to model workforce trends, aligning talent supply with future demand, mitigating economic shocks, and strengthening labour market resilience. By analysing technology adoption, demographic shifts, and economic indicators, AI anticipates emerging skill needs, guiding long-term talent strategies. Policymakers and educators can also use these insights to redesign curricula, improve vocational training, and target upskilling programmes for vulnerable populations.Healthcare exemplifies how predictive AI can avert crises by forecasting regional shortages of medical professionals, enabling proactive interventions like expanding training capacity or adjusting immigration policies. Similarly, sectors like manufacturing, logistics, energy, and public services can prepare for automation, sustainability transitions, or large-scale retirements through targeted retraining and recruitment strategies.Economically, AI-driven workforce planning reduces unemployment and job vacancies while supporting sustainable growth. Socially, it creates more equitable opportunities by helping workers prepare for future changes. However, ethical deployment is essential, with safeguards for transparency, fairness, data privacy, and bias mitigation. Ultimately, AI-powered talent matching, personalised upskilling, and predictive workforce planning shift decision-making from reactive to proactive. By combining technology with inclusive strategies, AI can build a more adaptable, equitable, and future-ready global workforceArtificial Intelligence holds great potential but is not a universal solution, and overreliance poses serious risks. Bias in training data can replicate or worsen inequalities, leading to discriminatory hiring and further marginalising disadvantaged workers. Automation threatens routine and lower-skilled roles, often without generating enough alternative employment. Additionally, digital divides exclude those lacking access, connectivity, or necessary digital skills.While AI can help address labour gaps, it may also deepen social and economic inequality unless equity, transparency, and fairness are intentionally built into its design, deployment, and workforce integration strategies.A sustainable AI talent strategy must prioritise people over technology, using AI to enhance human creativity, problem-solving, and decision-making rather than simply replacing jobs. Organisations should invest in tools that foster employee growth, engagement, and continuous learning. Equally vital is building inclusive AI ecosystems through collaboration between developers, HR leaders, and policymakers.This means ensuring AI systems are transparent, explainable, and fair by auditing algorithms for bias, protecting worker data, and making tools accessible across different languages, abilities, and education levels. Addressing the digital divide is crucial, requiring joint efforts from governments and organisations to expand access to infrastructure, education, and upskilling, particularly in underserved communities.AI can also support flexible work models: remote, hybrid, or gig-based, broadening access to talent and accommodating diverse needs. However, such flexibility must come with fair pay, safe conditions, and career growth for all workers. Ultimately, a sustainable AI workforce strategy balances technology, equity, and human potential.AI is a powerful tool, but cannot solve global workforce challenges alone, as talent shortages stem from human challenges of education, inclusion, access and opportunity. A sustainable solution requires integrating AI into a broader strategy for human capital development that prioritises equity, adaptability, and dignity at work. When used responsibly, AI can shift us from scarcity, unfilled roles and disengaged workers to alignment, where everyone has the skills, tools, and support to contribute meaningfully to the economy.Alika is an experienced human resources and business strategy professional

By Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf

The opposition politicians who, on 6 July, coalesced under the African Democratic Congress (ADC), did some good for Nigerians, but did not make them proud.First, they raised issues of the lack of democracy, transparency, and discipline within political parties.

Since then, they have been verbalising about party democracy. This is important because anti-democratic and anti-development forces cannot democratise and develop Nigeria. Second, they have been showing interest, even if not commitment and determination, in dislodging the dominance of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and replace Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as president – one who has been treating Nigerian masses as conquered, enslaved, colonised, and lifeless people.But ADC has not made Nigerians proud because its major concern is with itself – to win the 2027 presidential elections. Which is why the debate amongst the party gladiators and activists is: Who will become its presidential candidate? Should the unwritten but widely accepted zoning formula be upheld or discarded? Should the presidential candidate emerge by popular consensus or party primaries?But party democracy for whom, what, and why? Is a presidential candidate Nigeria’s problem? Are most of the ADC gladiators, activists, and followers not from APC and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)? Are these not the only parties that have ruled Nigeria since 1999?Let us assume, without conceding, that the ADC gladiators and activists are born-again democrats and patriots: what is their agenda for Nigerians? What differentiates them from APC?Like APC, the 2027 presidential election is what ADC is primarily interested in! No programme or agenda about the rest of us. Just who emerges as the presidential candidate. No talks on how it will transparently and democratically throw-up candidates for local, state, and National Assembly elections.No talks on how ADC differs from APC, PDP, Labour Party and even the New Nigerian People’s Party. Just party-building, party democracy, party aspirants, and so on. Always polemics against APC! Now and then celebrating how it is hitting APC! Some even say ADC is the government-in-waiting, come 2027.But what does ADC have for Nigerians? Other than the general and lifeless condemnation of Tinubunomics, as “catastrophic”, ADC has no known economic agenda for Nigeria. It describes Tinubu’s removal of fuel subsidies, the devaluation of the naira, and fiscal policy as “catastrophic.” So what is its alternative?Like APC, ADC will provide a “safety net”. But, unlike APC, it will be adequate “safety nets”. Have the “safety nets” provided since the General Ibrahim Babangida days tackled the disastrous effects of International Monetary Fund and World Bank witchcraft economism? No! If anything, studies show that safety nets are largely for the wrong people; not the petty traders, farmers, underemployed, unemployed, and vulnerable masses!So, the question is: What concrete policies has the ADC for Nigeria? Will it adopt a state-driven development policy, instead of only private sector driven development? Will it adopt a home-initiated, propelled and driven economic policy, in which we produce what we consume and consume what we produce?Will ADC adopt and enforce policies in which there will be value-addition to our raw materials? Will it initiate, creatively promote, and defend home industries, as Nigeria did in the 1960s and 1970s? These are policies which significantly built state-capacity, grew the economy, ensured security, developed Nigerians educationally, socially, and culturally, while also making Nigeria respected and feared globally.If yes, will ADC allow for the full operation of government petroleum refineries? Will it also license new refineries, and allow modular refineries to operate freely? Or, will it continue exporting crude oil and importing refined products?What about electricity? There can be no democracy and development without adequate, regular, cheap, and affordable electricity? Will ADC reverse the privatisation of the state electricity company and allow it to fairly and justly compete with private ones? Or, will it continue speaking the baseless grammar that past governments spoke, and the current one is speaking?Like APC, ADC is not crying against terrorism; genocidal activities; crimes against humanity; the destruction of farms; and the mass sack and displacement of people; including the seizure and take-over of people’s ancestral lands by Fulani terrorists.Neither has the ADC, like the APC, politically acted against the rape of women; infanticide; illegal imposition of taxes on rural dwellers; kidnappings; invasion of places of worship; killing of clerics and worshippers, amongst others, by terrorists.ADC’s silence on these matters definitely shows that it has no agenda to tackle the insecurity, genocide, terrorism, and crimes against humanity ravaging Nigeria. Yet, these are currently the burning issues confronting Nigeria. They are the major reasons why foodstuffs and the cost of living are rising increasingly. They are the major factors responsible for the increasing militarisation of the society, and general distrust and dislike of the state by society.My question is, what will ADC do about insecurity, genocidal attacks and terrorism? Will it give the security forces the resources, deadline and free hand to make the terrorists history? Will they allow Nigerians to arm and defend themselves?Or, will it glorify and encourage terrorism by negotiating with the terrorists, as some APC Governors did and are doing? Will the ADC, like APC, handover the security apparati to politicians and security personnel that are allegedly sympathetic and supportive of the terrorists? Or, will it, like APC, keep promising, but never seriously ting to end insecurity? Or, will it, like APC, keep shamelessly and stupidly lying that security has improved?Like the APC, the ADC does not have policies addressing the problems of Nigeria’s divides. What has it been like for the dormant Hausa majority and ethnic minority nationalities, who have largely been relegated to background in the affairs of the state and society?What programme has it for the female gender, the elderly, workers, farmers, people with disabilities, out-of-school-children, and internally displaced persons scattered all over Nigeria? What about the countless orphans, widows, homeless, refugees, and beggars that Boko Haram and terrorists created?What about our military, police and other security personnel that were maimed, physically disabled, mentally deranged, forgotten, abandoned, and compelled to fend for themselves in hospitals and their homes? National heroes who gallantly fought terrorism and sacrificed themselves so that the rest of society will be secured?What policies has the ADC to develop our universities, hospitals, and industries, or, at least, return them to what they were during the Second Republic? What solid programmes does it have to discourage the mass exodus of Nigerian academics, professionals, and youths all over the world?That the ADC is a “new” coalition is not an excuse for lacking any agenda for Nigerians. If the forces that coalesced had Nigerians in their minds, they would in their pre-coalition meetings have amalgamated on the basis of a common agenda of democracy, development, security, and the well-being of Nigerians.Finally, even if ADC has a good and well-articulated agenda for Nigerians, can it execute such agenda, when most of its gladiators, activists and followers are from the Buhari wing of the APC – one that is notoriously heartless, thoroughly vicious, extremely conservative, awfully divisive, politically reactionary, ethnically chauvinistic, religiously jingoistic, and incurably kleptomaniac? Except for their middle letters, what in reality is the difference between APC and ADC?Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf worked as deputy director, Cabinet Affairs Office, The Presidency, and retired as General Manager (Administration), Nigerian Meteorological Agency, (NiMet). Email: aaramatuyusuf@yahoo.com

By Dakuku Peterside

As the political season begins in Nigeria ahead of the 2027 elections, we are beginning to see another round of promises, slogans, and declarations of vision. Billboards will soon rise, rallies will be held, and political actors jostle for public attention.

But beneath this loud, choreographed performance, a quieter tragedy unfolds in the country’s northern belt — children are wasting away, not in war, not in displacement, but in silence. The contrast is jarring while politicians vie for airtime, a grave, slow-motion emergency is eroding the potential of an entire generation. Across northeast and northwest geopolitical zones, severe acute malnutrition has reached levels comparable to what is often seen in war times. Yet no formal war is raging. Instead, an absence of attention, of priority, of leadership is doing the damage.I first sensed the scale of that dissonance on a sweltering July afternoon in my visit to one of the northern states. A nurse at a community health post held up a measuring tape — green for health, red for danger — around the twig‑thin arm of a three‑year‑old girl. The dial fell deep into crimson. “We see wartime numbers,” the nurse whispered, shaking her head, “but there is no war.” That single sentence captures the moral puzzle now facing Nigeria: How can such devastation grow in the relative calm of peacetime?In clinics scattered across the North, community health workers continue their daily rituals: measuring the circumference of toddlers’ arms, documenting weight loss, and trying, with limited resources, to stem a tide of hunger that has outpaced both state responses and national outrage.According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, over 3.7 million people are acutely food insecure in northern Nigeria. However, this figure, as dire as it is, likely underestimates the accurate scale of the crisis. Many remote villages receive no formal visits, no surveys, no clinical screenings — only the steady arrival of hunger and poverty. Factor them in, and the count edges toward five million. Even these aggregates blur the lived reality. In Zamfara’s dusty hamlets, entire households survive on a single meagre meal; in Yobe’s IDP camps, mothers dilute porridge to stretch one cup for three children.The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) had warned that in 2024 alone, more than 700,000 children in the region suffered from severe acute malnutrition (SAM), with over 100,000 of them at imminent risk of death without urgent medical intervention.The figures in 2025 will be even more staggering, given the recent evidence of malnutrition in the area. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors without Borders, has raised alarm over the growing number of malnourished children in Nigeria, revealing that it admits more than 400 cases daily in Kebbi State alone.Malnutrition is rarely dramatic — it arrives in shrunken bellies and dulled eyes, in children too tired to cry and mothers too weak to breastfeed. It creeps in through drought, displacement, conflict, food inflation, and broken systems. And because it does not explode, it often does not make headlines. Unlike terrorism or natural disasters, it is quiet. But it is just as deadly. Every single day in Nigeria, approximately 2,300 children under five die, and malnutrition is a contributing factor in nearly half of these deaths.The painful truth about this crisis is its preventability. Hunger in northern Nigeria is not a natural disaster, but a consequence of a system that values political optics over structural reform. During campaigns, politicians often launch food drives and cash transfers with great fanfare — short-term gestures that provide immediate relief and long-lasting headlines.However, these interventions are rarely part of a long-term strategy. They do not enhance food production, maternal health, access to clean water, or early detection systems. There are no incentives to invest in reforms that take years to show results. Why build resilience when elections are won by what people can see now?The cost of ignoring malnutrition is profound and enduring. A stunted child is not just a personal tragedy but a national one. Nigeria has the second-highest burden of stunted children globally, with an estimated twelve million under the age of five affected by chronic undernutrition.Nearly one in three Nigerian children is stunted, which means their physical and mental growth is permanently impaired. These children will likely do worse in school, earn less over their lifetimes, and face greater risks of chronic illness. The World Bank estimates that malnutrition can reduce a country’s GDP by up to 11 per cent when you account for lower productivity, higher health costs, and lost potential.Every untreated case of malnutrition is an invoice deferred to the future. Neuroscientists remind us that the first 1,000 days of life shape the brain’s wiring. A stunted child may never fully catch up cognitively, no matter the quality of later schooling. Economists convert those impairments into lost productivity, estimating that Nigeria could be forfeiting 2 to 3 per cent of its GDP annually.Public‑health accountants tally the hospital admissions for pneumonia and diarrhoeal disease that soar when immune systems are starved of zinc, iron, and vitamin A. Sociologists track the link between food scarcity and unrest, noting how hunger can erode social trust faster than any televised grievance. Put differently: malnutrition is not just a humanitarian concern — it is a stealth saboteur of national security, economic diversification, and educational reform. Ignore it, and every other development target becomes more complex and more expensive to hit.Children who come to school hungry are less likely to concentrate, more likely to drop out, and far less likely to escape poverty in adulthood. In northern states like Kebbi and Zamfara, school absenteeism is often directly linked to hunger. According to UNICEF, 70 per cent of school-age children in food-insecure households miss more than three days of school a month. The cycle is cruel and self-reinforcing: hunger leads to poor learning, which in turn leads to unemployment and poverty; poverty then feeds back into hunger.And yet, there are glimmers of what is possible when leadership is guided by vision and conscience. A state in the southeast has introduced a “one balanced diet a day” policy for all school-age children, recognising the devastating effects of hunger on education, health, and long-term human capital.This singular act, although modest in scale, presents a transparent and replicable model that other states should adopt urgently. It shifts nutrition from being an emergency response to a daily, institutionalised commitment, integrating school feeding with agricultural and health systems.Already, early evaluations show improved school attendance, weight gains in children, and even local economic stimulation through the sourcing of produce from nearby farms.Dr Ali Pate, Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, is leading a comprehensive national effort to combat malnutrition as a public health emergency. His multi-sectoral approach combines immediate treatment with long-term prevention strategies.Treatment centres equipped with locally produced, ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTF) have been established in the northeast and northwest, achieving recovery rates of up to 90%. Funding has significantly increased, with $11 billion allocated by the federal government and an additional $60 million from UNICEF to support healthcare infrastructure and nutrition programs.Community-level early detection systems using MUAC tapes are being scaled up, and over 40,000 health workers are being trained to identify and manage malnutrition. Through the National Strategic Plan of Action on Nutrition and the N774 programme, nutrition services now reach most local government areas.Nationwide implementation of standardised guidelines, micronutrient supplementation, food fortification, and public nutrition education campaigns has reached many caregivers. Crucially, Dr. Pate has unified efforts across ministries and sectors through a central coordination platform, accompanied by new accountability mechanisms, to track progress and ensure sustainability.What is a pragmatic roadmap between now and 2027? Make nutrition politically contagious. Party manifestos must feature explicit, budgeted nutrition targets — malnutrition cannot survive the scrutiny of voters. Scale what already works.Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) programmes, when fully funded, can treat a child for less than the daily cost of a campaign rally. Mandatory fortification of flour, cassava, and cooking oil can reach millions silently and efficiently — re-engineer agriculture for climate reality. Drought‑tolerant millet varieties, solar‑powered boreholes, and warehouse‑receipt systems to curb post‑harvest loss will outlast any campaign poster. None of these actions requires reinventing the wheel. They demand, instead, a political imagination wide enough to see past the next podium.Still, the work ahead remains monumental. These initiatives, while promising, must be scaled aggressively and protected from the shifting winds of politics. If Nigeria is to stand any chance of reversing the tide of child malnutrition, this moment—this narrow window between now and 2027 — must become the tipping point.Every state must follow the example set by Anambra. Every governor must internalise that a child fed today is a citizen empowered tomorrow. Every candidate must treat child nutrition not as a talking point but as a policy cornerstone.If Nigeria’s political class decides that malnutrition is not a side issue but the central test of stewardship, the nascent election season for the 2027 elections could mark the start of a renaissance in child survival and, by extension, national renewal. The road is narrow, the window short. Yet history is replete with moments when political will, once awakened, turned statistics into stories of recovery.The children of northern Nigeria deserve that pivot — deserve to swap the colour red on a measuring tape for the bright green of health, growth, and possibility. If Nigeria’s political class truly wishes to build a country that works for all, it must start by ensuring no child falls through the cracks of neglect. Let the road to 2027 be paved not just with promises, but with full bellies, thriving children, and a generation finally given a fair start.Dakuku Peterside, a public sector turnaround expert, public policy analyst and leadership coach, is the author of the forthcoming book, “Leading in a Storm”, a book on crisis leadership.