Nigeria, represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, used the platform of the 2025 Group of 20 (G20) Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, to demand a global framework that ensures equity in the trade of minerals and the establishment of ethical standards for Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The summit’s Third Session focused on the theme: “A fair and just future for all: Critical minerals, decent work, artificial intelligence.”
The President emphasized that for Nigeria and Africa, minerals are not just deposits but hold the promise of industrial transformation. He stressed that the current systems often leave host communities impoverished while their resources power global industries.
The demand of the Federal Government of Nigeria is centered on reforming the global mineral trade to ensure that wealth translates into collective progress.
Nigeria called for a global framework that promotes value addition at the source and supports local beneficiation, and that resources should be processed into finished or semi-finished goods in Africa, rather than simply exported as raw materials.
The President insisted that the extraction and trade of minerals must be governed by fairness, transparency, and accountability to ensure host communities are not marginalized. He also states that progress must be people-centered, with decent work being the anchor that makes the green and digital transitions fair, inclusive, and sustainable.
The Federal Government of Nigeria supports the creation of global ethical standards for AI that uphold safety, transparency, and equity. The goal is to ensure AI remains a tool of empowerment, not exclusion; of job creation, not displacement.
Tinubu called for deliberate partnerships between developed and developing nations to foster technology transfer and address systemic bias in AI systems.
Beyond the key theme of the session, the Federal Government of Nigeria also pushed for comprehensive reform of the international financial architecture, arguing that current multilateral frameworks fail to show the complexities and needs of the present world.
The President urged world leaders to create a more equitable system to manage financial flows and sincerely address the recurring debt crises, which continue to drag developing economies into cycles of fragility.
Nigeria demanded that the G20 take steps to reform the global institutions that sustain the financial architecture, ensuring a system that meets the needs of the Global South who have been too often marginalized.
President Tinubu urged G20 partners to help build a future where Africa is seen not just as a supplier of raw materials, but as a continent of value creation, innovation, and dignity in work.
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