57th International Conference & Exhibition Of CIPM, Chartered Institute Of Personnel Management Of Nigeria

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SPEECH DELIVERED BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, IMMEDIATE PAST VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AT THE 57TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION OF THE CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT OF NIGERIA (CIPM) ON THE 30TH OF OCTOBER, 2025

Protocols

I am honoured to be invited to make these remarks today, and I must also congratulate the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria, CIPM, for the giant strides that you have made in the last five decades. Today, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation regards the institute as a vital partner in the execution of its landmark reforms.

One of such is the collaboration with the Service in the implementation of the Performance Management System, a key feature in modernising and streamlining performance evaluation processes in the service. May I also take this opportunity to express my very sincere condolences on the passing of one of the doyens of human resource management practice in Nigeria and the eighth president of the Institute, Christopher Kolade, Commander of the Order of the Niger. I’m aware that it was during Dr. Kolade’s tenure that the Institute achieved one of its most significant milestones: the attainment of Charter Status, which elevated the CIPM to the legally recognised body, mandated to regulate the practice of human resource management in Nigeria. May his memory and legacies always be blessed.

I’m to speak on the theme of the conference: “Reimagining the New World of Work.” I don’t think there is any subject of greater moment today than the question of what work would look like in another, say, five years, not even a decade. The changes we are seeing are that profound. I was speaking recently to the new management of the law firm that I co-founded, Simmons Cooper Partners, from which I am now retired. They were telling me about their new AI-driven tools for legal practice. They now have a Chat GPT interface that can, within minutes, sift through several legal databases and offer summarised opinions based on statutes and case law. This was a task that would usually take days of research and involve several lawyers, beginning with junior counsel all the way up to the partner who would eventually sign off on the opinion.

But what is more, the system can even argue with you if you challenge its reasoning. They also use a predictive analytics and legal strategy interface that draws on historical data to advise our clients. They have a tool called the GitHub Co-Pilot for legal drafting, and this uses the firm’s internal database to suggest language and clauses that are tailored to specific legal documents.

These tools can draft pleadings; in other words, they can draft a statement of claim, a statement of defence, the sorts of things that we lawyers spend time doing. And they would apply the applicable procedure, the rules and laws. Another impressive feature is the Work Product Character Recognition Tool, which ensures that every document produced maintains the firm’s professional tone and branding guidelines.

The firm also employs AI chatbots to provide immediate responses to common client enquiries, even outside business hours, in other words, 24 hours. Today, we already have, and this is already available so many law firms, contract review tools like Luminance, Kira Systems, Spellbook, et cetera. They can highlight risky clauses in an agreement or in a contract. It can suggest amendments. It can compare the language in the document to language existing in already existing precedents, and it can translate legalese, or legal language, into plain English. And these tools are becoming more intelligent by the day.

In December 2024, ChatGPT launched its 01 model, which is a design to solve complex problems by spending more time thinking. It now has better performance on very complex tasks, like especially in STEM, in mathematics, in coding, and multi-step logic, et cetera. These systems are now capable of critical reasoning, using vast data resources faster than the human mind.

There are also now a variety of tools that even judges can use. The tools will listen to proceedings in court, faithfully record all the witnesses say, the arguments of counsel, do a summary of facts, evidence, and arguments, then apply statutes and case law to the facts, and come up with a written judgement, and draw up relevant orders following from the conclusions that are reached, even offering options of possible conclusions that can be reached based on the facts and the law. So, while such tools, and we must admit that these tools cannot replace the human element of judicial reasoning, or the exercise of discretion, they certainly hold great potential as decision support systems that enhance efficiency, accuracy, and consistency in the administration of justice.

So it’s now clear that much of the work that lawyers do can be performed faster, more accurately by technology. Unlike humans, these systems don’t get tired, they don’t go on leave, they don’t ask for a pay raise, and like mobile phones, they’re becoming cheaper and more accessible every day. The laws that we practised, the tools that we have relied on, and the judicial institutions that we use were largely conceived in a pre-digital, pre-AI, pre-globalised world.

30 years ago, lawyers were the only gatekeepers of specialised knowledge in law. We knew what to look for in law libraries and how to apply cases and statutes. We found answers to our clients’ problems. Today, with AI, you no longer need to know which book to open; you only need to pose a problem to your AI tool, and it will search through millions of records, analyse them, and produce an opinion in seconds.

The role of the lawyer, like that of many professionals, is changing profoundly, and with mind-boggling speed. I’ve used the example of law because that is my own field of experience, but the truth is that work in nearly every human endeavour is being radically defined.

Digital technology, AI, Machine Learning, and Quantum Computing have transformed everything about work. The time it takes for work to be done, the number of humans that are required, the skills needed, the work environment itself, and even the policies and laws that govern labour. So, when we talk about the future of work in Nigeria, we’re not talking about a distant future. The future is already here, and it’s being shaped by at least three powerful forces. The first, as we have seen, is by the rapid digital transformation that we’re experiencing, and the rise of artificial intelligence.

The second is our youthful population. Nigeria, as you know, has one of the youngest workforces in the world, and every year, millions of young people enter the labour market, full of energy and ambition, but the question is how to equip them with the right skills for the new jobs and opportunities that are coming into existence? And there are many such opportunities. E-commerce and FinTech are booming, creating new opportunities in logistics, payment systems and customer service.

Healthcare and education are expanding rapidly. As our population grows, the green economy is also growing, and the opportunities in the green economy, from solar energy to waste management, are also opening new career paths. And of course, technology and AI are reshaping every sector, from banking to agriculture to law to medicine, practically every sector.

But we must also face a critical reality. Nigeria is no longer competing for talent, only within its borders. We are competing with the world. There’s already a global talent race that is going on, especially for tech or tech-enabled businesses and services, so the global demand for cloud engineers, for software developers and AI specialists is soaring, and this is reshaping Nigeria’s job market in several ways.

Remote work, working from home, and working outside the office have unlocked global opportunities. Nigerian tech professionals now work for companies in the US, in Europe, and in Asia, without leaving home.

But this also fuels brain drain. Many skilled Nigerians relocate abroad for better pay, infrastructure and stability. Others remain here but work exclusively for foreign companies. So local companies struggle to compete because they cannot match international salaries and benefits, creating a talent vacuum at home.

The retention of talent has become a major challenge. Even when companies train engineers, they often lose them to global recruiters within months. Sectors like fintech, e-commerce, and health tech are especially affected, competing fiercely for the very same limited pool of developers and engineers.

The point is that coping with this trend would require creating competitive opportunities at home, building a robust digital infrastructure. We must reduce the cost of internet and mobile data as well because affordable access is the gateway to the digital economy, and we are told by some of the best surveys that a reduction in data costs could increase our GDP by as much as 2 percent. And this must be matched, of course, by building out broadband infrastructure to reach rural and underserved areas.

We must expand energy accessibility, investing in solar, in wind, and all of these have the power to reduce energy poverty. And we must invest continuously in re-skilling so that professionals see a future for themselves here, not just abroad.

Already, government and industry are taking some commendable steps. Initiatives like the 3 million technical talent programme, 3MTT, which aims to train a new wave of software engineers, cloud specialists, and AI professionals, enough to serve both local and global markets, are on.

But let me speak very briefly about the imperative of redefining education and skills because the redefinition of work means a redefinition of education, of training, and of re-skilling.

Education as we knew it must be fundamentally re-engineered in the light of today’s realities. How we teach, what we teach must change. And they are driven by the kind of employees that the market now demands. The market now demands a lot more innovation, a lot more efficiency, a lot more tech-savvy problem solvers who can collaborate and who can co-create effectively.

So to achieve this, the emphasis in teaching must shift to critical thinking, problem solving, and collaborative thinking and execution. Memorising and regurgitating information is now, of course, completely obsolete. The world already overflows with information. There’s already too much information available to us through so many sources. So, cramming information, learning information by heart has become completely irrelevant and obsolete. AI now processes and analyses information better than we can.

The real value lies in knowing how to apply knowledge to real-life problems, which are rarely confined to traditional disciplines. So, we also need more modular learning programmes instead of standard university degrees. Of course, standard university degrees are important, but we are going to see the emergence of just more modular learning programmes.

These are short, focused training programmes designed to equip learners with specific skills that are in demand at the moment. These come as micro-credentials or digital badges. For example, IBM has a Digital Badging Programme offering micro-credentials in cloud computing, blockchain, technology, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

These are skills that prepare learners for specialised roles without necessarily going the full course of a degree in a university. These programmes are shorter, more affordable, flexible and far more accessible than traditional degrees.

What will now become the role of human resource practice and the role of you, ladies and gentlemen who are here, who are specialists in human resource management? What should the role be? I think that in today’s rapidly evolving world of work, artificial intelligence and digital technology are transforming not only how work is done but also where and by whom it is done. Routine and repetitive tasks are increasingly being automated, while creativity, emotional intelligence, and adaptability have become the defining skills of human workers.

We must take into account the fact that, yes, human beings still retain that. They still retain the capacity for emotional intelligence. Instruments of any kind, tools of any kind, don’t have that emotional intelligence.

But we must be able to match that human emotional intelligence; we must be able to match it with the skills that are required to work and co-create with AI tools and digital technology tools. Human intelligence by itself, emotional intelligence by itself, today will be outstripped very quickly by the capacity of AI to do so much more.

So, for human resource professionals in Nigeria, I think this represents both a challenge and an opportunity to lead in humanising digital transformation and ensuring that people remain at the centre of technological progress. One of the most pressing priorities, I think, for human resource practice is workforce reskilling, reskilling the workforce and digital literacy. As we have seen, the skill sets that are required in modern workplaces are changing faster than ever before. And I believe that HR practitioners must drive continuous upskilling initiatives that prepare employees for emerging roles. This involves conducting skill audits, investing in training, and partnering with educational and technological institutions to deliver practical digital-focused learning programmes. I think that it’s important to bear in mind that one of the critical roles of organisations such as yourselves is to influence university curricula, to influence the curricula of schools so that they reflect the challenges that we are likely to see in the workplace.

The CIPM is an influential organisation, and it must ensure that that influence is used to enable educational authorities, educational policy makers to understand the realities of today and to change curricula with respect to several of the different areas and places where that needs to be done to enable a different way of teaching, a different way of thinking.

The future-ready organisation is one where its people are equipped to thrive alongside intelligent systems. The CIPM, in my own view, must set the pace in drawing up the checklists of what HR professionals should do in this regard.

Also, as AI becomes integrated into the HR functions, such as recruitment, performance and assessment, and workforce analytics and those sorts of things, ethical and responsible use becomes very critical. We are at a time when all that is being developed. This is the time to exercise influence as policy is being developed.

Because when you look at it, a lot of the critical algorithms can inadvertently reproduce bias or even breach privacy if left unchecked. HR must therefore, in my own view, create clear ethical guidelines to deploy AI to regularly audit those algorithms, fairness and transparency, and ensure compliance with Nigeria’s data protection laws, especially the Data Protection Act of 2023. Only human resource professionals, working with clear knowledge of the implications of deploying HR in the workplace, can ensure that trust, fairness, and accountability underpin every AI-driven HR decision.

At the same time, the very nature of employment is changing. The rise of gig work, as they call it, hybrid models, and digital freelancing is defining the employment relationship. So people are multitasking, doing various types of assignments.

One single individual sitting in his home is servicing three or four different companies in several different respects. HR policies and contracts must evolve to accommodate flexible and remote arrangements. It must now be able to accommodate people who are working from home, while addressing data security issues, digital monitoring, and fair performance measurement.

How do you fairly assess the gig worker? HR professionals should engage in policy advocacy to ensure that labour laws reflect new forms of work and protect the rights of the gig and digital workers. With greater technological connectivity also comes a lot of pressure. So the 24-7 digital culture, people are alive, working all the time, can lead to mental health challenges, burnout, stress, isolation, et cetera.

Nigerian HR leaders must therefore prioritise employee well-being and mental health programmes. Today, there’s a lot more focus on mental health issues, a lot more focus. And I think that it’s time that HR professionals take this up much more seriously.

To promote the balance, establish healthy boundaries, and offer access to counselling and support services, to create a culture of empathy, of inclusion, and psychological safety is essential for maintaining productivity and morale in these digital workplaces. AI and data analytics now allow HR to make decisions that are informed by evidence, rather than by intuition. We now have the capacity to be informed by evidence, because this is all data-driven. There’s enough data available, and the use of that data, of course, can help in decision-making.

But the data-driven approach requires HR teams to build analytical skills, ensure the accuracy and security of employment data, and use insights ethically to support people rather than to mount surveillance against them. Data must serve as a tool for empowerment, not control.

So the digital era also demands renewed attention to diversity, to issues of inclusion and equity, because it’s very easy to say, well, we’ve put this through a digital process. It’s all transparent and all that. But if the parameters are already rigged against inclusion, if they are rigged against certain types of people, then, of course, the results will also be wrong.

So, technology can either amplify existing social inequities or help to close them, depending on how it is designed and used. I think that HR must therefore ensure that data sets that are used in digital technology systems are inclusive, that they are representative of more digital skills development for women, for youth, and leverage technology to identify and eliminate bias in workplace systems. I think also that as the leadership and organisational culture evolves, we must ensure that we are matching it with human judgement, human emotion, because the evolution can take place much faster than we’re able to control.

While machines may handle logic and speed, human leadership that is grounded in empathy, in ethics and creativity is irreplaceable. We can’t replace that. HR’s role is to cultivate leaders who can balance innovation with humanity and nurture organisational cultures built on trust, on collaboration, and continuous learning.

Nigeria’s legal and policy environment is catching up to a certain extent with the realities of AI and digital work, and I think HR professionals must stay compliant with regulations such as the Data Protection Act, monitor emerging AI governance frameworks, both local and international, and establish internal compliance systems that also anticipate future legal developments.

Finally, I think HR must confront the reality that many roles, many jobs will be lost. There is no question about that, especially for routine and repetitive jobs. Jobs will be lost, but new opportunities will be created without a doubt.

Forward-looking organisations will invest in retraining and redeployment programmes, and I think the CIPM can work with government and civil society to strengthen social safety nets and promote a vision of AI collaboration where technology enhances rather than replaces human contribution.

Ultimately, the future of work in Nigeria will not be determined by technology alone, but by how thoughtfully organisations integrate human values, ethics, and inclusion into the technological revolution, and I think that HR professionals stand at the centre of this transformation, shaping not only the workforce of tomorrow but the very meaning of work itself.

Lastly, I want to consider labour laws and policy reform. How should labour laws and policy reform operate in this brave new world of the future of work? I think that as digital technology and AI reshape the workplace, Nigeria’s labour laws and policies must also evolve at pace. Rules written for factory floors must adapt to a world of gig platforms, people who are doing multiple tasks, working in multiple places. It must adapt to remote work, and it must adapt to algorithmic decision-making.

These are new realities that we must take into account in labour laws and policy, and I think also again, the CIPM and organised labour, working with legislators, must work creatively to redefine employment, to include gig workers, freelancers, and platform workers, especially on how such new categories of workers can access pensions, access health insurance, and other workplace protections. They must also seek legislation that guarantees reskilling opportunities.

Reskilling opportunities are important because jobs will be lost. Somebody has to stand up for those whose jobs will be lost, and we must, as a matter of legal policy, ensure that reskilling opportunities are compelled upon companies and upon those who employ labour, and this can be done through tax incentives or government support funding. Also, strengthen and ensure compliance with all of our data protection rules for transparency and fairness in the use of employee data.

I think that we must also explore mandating a certain extent of transparency in the way we use algorithms, so workers understand how AI makes decisions on hiring, promotion, and discipline, because that’s going to be the case very soon. Very soon, we are not going to be filling all the forms that we fill now. We will say that we have faster means of doing so. We have more efficient, more transparent and objective means of doing so because we have the digital tools to do so. But we must ensure that the whole process is auditable, that the whole process is influenced by human judgement and empathy.

There must also be those protecting mental health by balancing, including the right to disconnect, as they say, especially with the sharp rise in remote working. Collective bargaining must also be enabled so that workers have a voice in technological change.

It’s also possible to manage global talent mobility. We can manage some of that mobility of talent through cross-border taxation and social security portability.

We must be able to do something that enables us to use our talent, talent that is trained here, and at the same time benefit from talent coming from elsewhere. By modernising our labour framework, Nigeria can actually balance protection with innovation. We can ensure that digital technology, automation and AI create opportunities, not inequalities.

Opportunities are possible, and they are all over the place, but we must be careful not to create inequalities and not to worsen the unemployment situation that we already have. So the future of work in Nigeria will not be determined alone, and I think this is an important thing to bear in mind; technology alone will not determine the future of work in this country; it will depend on how we prepare our people, our greatest resource, to thrive in this changing world. The biggest challenge for us and for human resource practitioners is how to prepare the workforce of this country for the dramatic changes that will occur in the coming years. If we get it right, Nigeria will not only adapt to the future of work, but Nigeria will actually help to redefine the future of work, not just for our country, but for the continent, and indeed the world.

Thank you very much.