Nigeria currently has no national policy on AI development, but one is on its way. In March 2023, the draft of the country’s national AI policy, led by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) with support from scores of industry experts, was launched by the former Communications and Digital Economy Minister, Isa Pantami. In August, his successor, Bosun Tijani, released a white paper announcing steps to expand on the draft by engaging top AI researchers of Nigerian descent globally in the process of crafting a comprehensive National AI Strategy. The decision to complete the design of the country’s national AI policy is one of many moves to boost the country’s strength in the AI world, including Nigeria aims to achieve a top 50 rank in AI Readiness by 2030, an ambitious goal, given its current 103rd position among 193 countries it currently occupies. To achieve this, the country has taken various significant steps that can serve as a critical foundation like providing grants for AI startups and researchers, and participating in global efforts to improve AI governance.
But this increasing commitment to AI development does not sit well with many Nigerians who have repeatedly tagged it a misplacement of priority for the country’s political leadership. No doubt, there is a myriad of development questions that Nigeria has failed, to answer for decades: at least 6 out of every 10 persons in the country live in multidimensional poverty; Nigeria’s 18 million out-of-school children population is the highest globally; 33 percent of the country’s working population remain unemployed; insecurity remains at very high levels; and electricity supply – a critical infrastructure for any digital progress – is one of the poorest on the continent. The country’s electricity supply is infamous for its instability, and its infrastructure deficit continues to rise.
These unfavourable realities are central issues that government critics consider more pressing than increasing AI efforts. The timing of the government’s new AI development initiatives, which coincided with the introduction of two major economic reforms — the removal of fuel subsidy and liberalisation of the country’s currency in the exchange market that have sparked the highest inflation rate in three decades — have also made it harder for Nigerians to consider increased government spending on AI efforts a worthy investment.
But scepticism towards AI commitment in the country and across the continent is not new. For instance, a 2021 study that surveyed the optimism of 125,000 individuals across 121 countries towards the potential of AI to improve their lives showed that people were more sceptical of its potentials in Nigeria and other countries in Eastern, Central and Western Africa than anywhere else globally.
Factors responsible for this dearth of optimism, according to the study, includes low levels of internet access and less exposure to technological developments. But do these contexts provide enough basis for the government to put an end to its rising commitment to AI development? Definitely not. Here are a few reasons.
First, an increase in government commitment to AI development is not mutually exclusive of increased effort to address the fundamental developmental issues Nigeria faces. If anything, it should be seen as a possible way to solve some of these problems. The potential of AI in this regard is evident in various instances of its usage across the continent. For instance, Nigeria’s conditional cash transfer program is infamous for its inability to provide the required safety net for those that need it. Majority of the factors responsible for this can be solved using AI as seen in Togo where the government used predictive algorithms to forecast the consumption of 70 percent of the population, identify and disburse support funds to those that truly need it. Similar patterns of utilising AI tools to address key social problems exist across other critical sectors like healthcare and education. However, the government must introduce policy guardrails necessary to prevent the potential suboptimal outcomes associated with the use of AI like the risk of inaccurate predictions that misjudge individual characteristics of consumers.
Another reason the government’s commitment to AI must not be halted is the impact of risks associated with the technology itself. Without regulation, it is clear that AI perpetuates biases and discriminates against specific groups, including Africans. This bias originates from the data used to train these systems, which in the case of African cultures, languages, and experiences can be limited or distorted. Instances of this discrimination have been found in the use of facial technology, which is less accurate with individuals with dark skin tones, and language processing AI tools that often struggle with African languages. To change this, representative data that encompasses the contexts and nuances of the language, culture, and contextual experience of Nigerians must be included in the training set for AI systems. But to achieve this at the scale that can truly change the narrative, the government’s commitment is non-negotiable.
Also, investing in AI is necessary for the Nigerian government because of the technology’s potential to increase labour productivity, a key issue confronting the economy. For instance, Nigeria currently faces a food security crisis and according to UNICEF, about 25 million residents battled food insecurity last year. Some of the factors responsible for this crisis like inefficient agricultural practices and post-harvest losses can be effectively addressed through AI integration. This is evident in the results recorded in places like Egypt where the government’s introduction of Hudhud, an AI-powered app that provides farmers with data on agricultural best practices and tailored direction according to their particular needs, has been adopted by numerous farmers covering 70 percent of the country’s farming land.
By the same token, the government’s commitment to AI development must continue because of the negative implication that doing otherwise portends. Currently, sixty percent of Africans are under the age of 25 and it is projected that by 2030, the continent’s young people will constitute 42 percent of the global youth population, and Nigeria will be home to the majority on the continent. But the African Development Bank has projected that a significant proportion of this population will be unemployed. For the government to change this narrative, natural language processing through sentiment analysis can be used to re-tailor learning curriculum across all levels of education to ensure students are impacted with skills and knowledge relevant to a future labour market that will be heavily defined by advancement in AI itself. The government can also integrate AI skills into elementary school curriculums to ensure students acquire the required knowledge that can aid their ability to effectively contribute to innovation.
More importantly, Africa is projected to provide the largest proportion of labour required to power AI. The Nigerian government’s commitment is necessary to upskill its young population and create an enabling environment for them to take advantage of the employment opportunity this represents. The government must also provide labour protection for these workers through adequate legislation to prevent their undue exploitation as seen in Kenya where Open AI underpay workers and Facebook provides poor working conditions.
Finally, the Nigerian government’s commitment to AI development is necessary to protect citizens. AI models are built using extensive data but there must be defined frameworks on how to access and use these data to ensure citizens are not exploited and their right to privacy is not eroded. This regulatory and governance role also extends to the government’s responsibility to introduce guardrails that accommodate the development of only responsible AI within the country and prevent the creation of a vacuum that can be filled by malicious non-state actors, including organisations that can use AI to generate terror.
Ultimately, while concerns that the Nigerian government must not overlook the everyday issues that citizens face is real, increasing commitment to AI development is necessary, not only because of the technology’s potentials to contribute to addressing some everyday social problems, but also because of the dangers that doing otherwise poses for the country and the avenue for innovation it represents.