President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria has urged G20 leaders to ensure that Africa and other developing nations benefit equitably from global economic and technological progress while calling for ethical AI standards.
Tinubu’s appeal was delivered at the Third Session of the 2025 Group of 20 (G20) Leaders’ Summit held at the Johannesburg Expo Centre, South Africa, under the theme “A Fair and Just Future for All: Critical Minerals, Decent Work, Artificial Intelligence.”
Vice President Kashim Shettima, who represented the President at the summit, delivered Tinubu’s call for value addition to critical minerals, and urgent reforms to the international financial system to address worsening debt crises.
Highlighting the strategic importance of critical minerals to Africa’s economic future, Tinubu says the continent’s resource endowment alone is insufficient to guarantee shared prosperity. He stressed that the extraction and trade of these minerals must be underpinned by fairness, transparency, and accountability to ensure that wealth generated translates into meaningful benefits for local communities.
On artificial intelligence, the President underscored the urgency of establishing global ethical standards to ensure that technological advancement uplifts humanity rather than widening inequality or displacing workers.
“Nigeria calls for a global framework that promotes value addition at the source, supports local beneficiation, and ensures that communities hosting these resources are not left behind,” he says. “The issue before us reaches far beyond the narrow arithmetic of economics and speaks to the moral character of the world we aspire to build.”
On artificial intelligence, the President underscored the urgency of establishing global ethical standards to ensure that technological advancement uplifts humanity rather than widening inequality or displacing workers.
“Nigeria supports the creation of global ethical standards for AI that uphold safety, transparency, and equity,” he says. “We must ensure that AI becomes a tool of empowerment, not exclusion; of job creation, not displacement.” Tinubu called for broad-based partnerships across nations, sectors, and communities to ensure responsible and inclusive deployment of AI.
The Nigerian leader also emphasised the centrality of decent work as the foundation of equitable development. He noted that through the Renewed Hope Agenda, Nigeria is investing in future-ready skills, expanding digital literacy, and equipping young people with vocational and entrepreneurial capabilities.
Beyond resources and technology, Tinubu called for sweeping reform of the international financial system, warning that existing multilateral structures no longer reflect global realities and often constrain developing nations in trade, financing, and economic growth.
“For trade to be truly inclusive, the G20 must take bold and deliberate steps towards reforming the international financial architecture and the global institutions that sustain it,” he says. “Only a more equitable and more responsive system can manage global financial flows with fairness, address recurring debt crises with sincerity, and meet the needs of all nations, especially those in the Global South who have too often stood at the margins of global opportunity.”
Tinubu cautioned that rising debt vulnerabilities are pushing economies into cycles of fragility, where local shocks quickly evolve into global risks. He urged G20 leaders to prioritise debt sustainability, responsible utilisation of critical minerals, and inclusive growth in the Leaders’ Declaration.
“The G20 must, in adopting the Leaders’ Declaration, take with utmost seriousness the responsibility to advance policies that drive sustainable growth, promote financial inclusion and confront emerging risks,” he says.
Tinubu concluded by urging global leaders to commit to a future where Africa is not merely a supplier of raw materials but a continent of value creation, innovation, and dignity in work.
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