The Federal Government has pledged stronger support for the Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria to help build a world-class workforce for the country’s oil and gas industry.

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, made the commitment while speaking in his keynote address at the just-concluded OGTAN Human Capital Development Conference and Expo in Warri, Delta State.

Lokpobiri said Nigeria was well-positioned to build a world-class oil and gas workforce, backed by growing investor confidence and an unprecedented pipeline of major projects heading towards Final Investment Decisions.

He described Nigeria as an emerging global investment hub, attributing the development to the incentive-driven reforms of President Bola Tinubu, which he said had improved the country’s competitiveness for international capital.

According to him, the pipeline of projects moving towards final investment decisions would require professionals trained to globally competitive standards, with much of the training expected 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.

Lokpobiri noted that many lecturers and resource persons across Nigerian universities and tertiary institutions were still working with materials that had not kept pace with a modern, AI-driven industry.

He stressed the need to retrain trainers to equip the next generation of engineers, technicians and other professionals with the skills demanded by the industry.

“If the training system underpinning that capital is still operating on a 50-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.

The minister said the Federal Government’s response to closing the skills gap was being channelled through the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board and the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act, in 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 urged OGTAN to expand its focus across the continent, noting that countries such as Angola, Congo and Gabon already depended 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.

Meanwhile, industry leaders, regulators and academics warned that Nigeria’s oil and gas workforce was not adequately prepared for the fresh wave of major projects approaching FIDs.

The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Felix Ogbe, represented by the Director, Capacity Building Directorate, Engr. Abayomi Bamidele, said Nigeria had effectively lost nearly 15 years of investment.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of ND Western, Mr Olanrewaju Kalejaiye, said human capital development should not be treated merely as a compliance requirement.

The Director-General of the Industrial Training Fund, Dr Afeez Ogun, said competence should be measured by the ability to perform a job rather than possession of a certificate.

Also speaking, Professor Mike Onyekonwu, pioneer and founding Chairman of OGTAN, said Nigerian graduates had the intelligence required by the industry but lacked adequate exposure to quality systems, digital skills and practical training.