Lean strategy is all about elimination of waste and redundant process; competitive benchmarking, introducing continuous improvement programs, preventive maintenance optimization, cycle time reduction, just-in-time (JIT), new process improvement, quality management programs, value engineering, self-directed work team, total quality management. The study investigates how people and duality of lean impacts lean implementation in organizations, looking at the case of the food processing manufacturing firms in Nigeria. To achieve the objective, the study employed Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) using data collected from 340 questionnaire collected from food processing firms in Nigeria. It was discovered from the study that factors hindering implementation of lean could be in the form of poor communication strategy within organisation, organizational culture, organisational knowledge, management support, policies on human development. The paper concludes that lean implementation does not have a stand-alone methodology, but the existence or lack of the identified factors may make or hinder successful implementation of lean especially in the food processing manufacturing companies in Nigeria.