Nigeria, June 22 -- President Bola Tinubu on Saturday called on West African leaders to harness the region's vast youth population and natural resources to drive industrialisation, innovation, and sustainable growth or risk falling further behind.

Opening the inaugural West Africa Economic Summit (WAES) in Abuja, Tinubu described the region's young demographic as a "powerful asset" that could become a liability without urgent investment in education, digital infrastructure, and job creation.

"Our prosperity depends on regional supply chains, energy networks, and data frameworks. We must design them together or they will collapse separately," Tinubu warned.

President Tinubu, who chairs ECOWAS, stressed the need for collective action to ...