By Kingsley I. Ilechukwu, Bureau Chief, South West, Nigeria
The Federal Government of Nigeria has reaffirmed its commitment to building a responsible, inclusive, and sovereign artificial intelligence ecosystem to enable Nigeria to transition from being a passive consumer of AI technologies to an architect and builder of indigenous AI systems.
According to an information put out by the Director of Corporate Communications & Media Relations at NITDA, Hajia Hadiza Umar, this was said by the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, while delivering a virtual address at the InnovateAI Conference held in Lagos.
The conference brought together policymakers, technology leaders, innovators, and stakeholders to discuss the future of artificial intelligence and its role in driving Nigeria’s digital economy and national development agenda.
Mallam Abdullahi outlined Nigeria’s ambition to transition from being a consumer of artificial intelligence technologies to becoming a builder and owner of AI systems that reflected national values and priorities, in line with the National AI Strategy.
“Our goal is not just to use AI, but to architect and build our own AI systems in Nigeria,” he said, stressing that the country must take ownership of its AI future.
He noted that Nigeria’s approach to artificial intelligence extended beyond innovation to include governance, infrastructure, data sovereignty, and policy evolution.
According to him, “Responsible AI is never a finished job; it is an iterative journey. Our policies must evolve as the technology evolves, and we must avoid frozen laws by adopting living policies that adapt over time.”
He cited the implementation of the Digital Economy and E-Governance Bill as a key mechanism for generating insights that would help refine AI regulations and governance frameworks.
Abdullahi also highlighted the challenge of data representation in global AI systems, noting that most models were trained on non-African datasets, which often resulted in bias against local dialects, cultures, and demographics.
“If a model shows bias against a local dialect or demographic, we cannot just patch it. We must reinvest in infrastructure to retrain it with inclusive and representative local datasets,” he stated.
He added that building national AI infrastructure was critical to achieving data sovereignty and ensuring that Nigeria was not merely an end user of foreign AI systems.
He further called for strategic partnerships with global technology companies and hyperscalers to build AI infrastructure in Nigeria while aligning with local values and national priorities.
“The world today is a global village. We need to work with global players, but they must understand our local nuances and help us build the infrastructure to retrain and develop AI models that reflect our context,” he said.
The NITDA Director-General explained that adopting a comprehensive AI lifecycle approach, from responsible data collection and governance to deployment and continuous feedback, would enable Nigeria to move from reacting to AI developments to proactively designing indigenous AI systems.
“Without understanding how AI models are trained, how decisions are made, and how models are retrained, it will be difficult to build a responsible and trustworthy AI system,” he warned.
He reaffirmed that the Federal Government was intentional about promoting responsible AI and was working closely with the technology ecosystem to co-design national AI guardrails. He described platforms such as the InnovateAI Conference and other national AI dialogues as critical to shaping Nigeria’s AI future.
