Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency will use artificial intelligence to organise contributions from the 2026 National Youth Confab and help convert the submissions into policy proposals, as the government opens a nationwide consultation to young Nigerians at home and abroad.
NITDA Director-General Kashifu Inuwa announced the plan at the opening of the conference in Abuja, saying technology would capture participants’ discussions, sort their priorities into themes and present the resulting analysis to the committee responsible for developing recommendations.
The approach is intended to widen participation beyond those physically present in Abuja. Virtual consultations are scheduled to run across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones from 5 to 17 October, while the official conference platform allows registered delegates to submit policy proposals online.
President Bola Tinubu said the consultations would remain open to young Nigerians wherever they live, including members of the diaspora. The process is expected to draw participants from the country’s 360 federal constituencies and examine six broad areas: governance and political participation; entrepreneurship and job creation; climate action and energy transition; education and future-ready skills; technology and digital innovation; and security and social cohesion.
From public comments to structured proposals
The central challenge is scale. Young Nigerians discuss jobs, education, insecurity, technology and the cost of living every day across social media, community organisations and professional networks. Those conversations generate a large volume of information, but they do not automatically become evidence that policymakers can analyse or act upon.
Inuwa said the proposed system would use digital tools to collect contributions and artificial intelligence to group them into identifiable priorities. The intention, he explained, is to filter irrelevant material and organise genuine proposals so that government officials can see recurring concerns and possible solutions.
“All your discussions will be captured, and the technology will keep it, and we will present it to the committee,” he said, adding that government would use the process to turn aspirations into ideas, proposals and eventually policies.
The official National Youth Confab portal already offers separate routes for delegate registration and policy submission. This gives participants a more formal channel than social media posts and could produce a searchable record of what young people requested and how the conference responded.
Why the AI process matters
Used carefully, automated analysis could help identify patterns across thousands of submissions more quickly than a small secretariat working manually. It may also help compare concerns from different regions and groups, reveal issues that appear repeatedly and reduce the risk that only the loudest voices dominate the final report.
For example, proposals about graduate unemployment may use different language while pointing to similar obstacles such as limited work experience, poor access to finance, outdated training or weak links between universities and employers. A well-designed system could cluster those contributions and help human reviewers understand the broader problem.
Technology could also improve inclusion if young people who cannot travel to Abuja are able to participate meaningfully from their communities. This is particularly important for people living with disabilities, those in rural areas, Nigerians abroad and participants who cannot afford transport and accommodation.
However, the use of AI does not by itself guarantee a fair or credible consultation. The quality of the result will depend on who submits ideas, what languages and formats the system can process, how the technology is trained, and whether officials publish enough information for the public to understand how contributions were selected or grouped.
Transparency will determine public confidence
The organisers have promised an open process, but several practical questions remain important. Participants need to know whether submissions will be anonymised, how personal information will be protected, whether the system can analyse contributions in Nigerian languages and how human reviewers will correct errors or misclassification.
There should also be a clear distinction between using AI as an administrative tool and allowing it to make policy choices. Software can help summarise and categorise material, but elected officials, subject experts and citizens must remain responsible for evaluating competing proposals and deciding what is feasible.
A credible process would publish its methodology, the number and regional spread of submissions, the main themes identified, and an explanation of how final recommendations were chosen. It should also provide a route for participants to challenge inaccurate summaries or show that an important concern was overlooked.
The Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, described the conference as an opportunity to move beyond discussion and produce practical, measurable responses to unemployment, skills gaps, access to finance, education, digital inclusion and security.
That ambition will ultimately be judged not by the sophistication of the technology but by whether the government publishes the findings, assigns responsibility for agreed actions and reports progress after the conference ends.
A test of digital participation
The National Youth Confab was first proposed by Tinubu during his Independence Day address on 1 October 2024. Its formal opening two years later creates an opportunity to test whether a large public consultation can combine physical meetings, virtual participation and AI-supported analysis without losing accountability.
If the process works, it could offer a model for future consultations on education, employment, the creative economy and other issues affecting a country with a large, youthful population. If the recommendations disappear into government files, however, the technology will have done little to address the scepticism that often follows national conferences.
Young Nigerians wishing to participate can register or submit proposals through the official National Youth Confab platform. Participants should focus on specific problems, practical solutions and measurable outcomes that can be assessed after the consultation.
