Nigeria Risks Digital Disaster Without Strong AI Governance – Experts

As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes the global digital landscape, two leading technology experts have sounded a stark warning that without robust governance, AI could become a digital disaster for Nigeria and Africa.

Speaking at the 2025 Africa’s Beacon of ICT Merit & Leadership Awards (ABoICT 2025) in Lagos, Professor Adewale Peter Obadare, Chief Visionary Officer of Digital Encode, and Amrich Singhal, Chief Operating Officer of Spectranet, emphasized the urgent need for a unified, governance-led approach to AI development, anchored on trust, regulation, and cybersecurity.

AI Without Governance: A Time Bomb

In his keynote address titled “AI Governance, Standardization and Cybersecurity in the AI Era,” Prof. Obadare warned against the rising trend of AI washing, a situation where companies mislabel simple automation tools as AI to ride the hype without accountability or integrity.

“Everything is now called AI, from photo filters to chatbots, but no one is talking about how to govern it,” he said.

Comparing today’s AI boom to the early internet era, he added: “We are repeating the same mistake we made with TCP/IP, which was not built with cybersecurity in mind. This time, we must do better.”

Governance, he stressed, is not a hindrance but an enabler of safe, scalable innovation. “It’s not a brake to stop progress; it’s a brake to make progress safe.”

Citing global frameworks like ISO/IEC 42001 and ISO/IEC 38507, he called for responsible AI innovation built on ethical standards, especially in protecting AI’s critical elements, which according to him, are data, models, and infrastructure.

Trusted Systems, Not Just Powerful Models

L-r: Dr. Krishnan Ranganath, Regional Executive, West Africa, Africa Data Centres, Adewale Obadare, chief visionary officer, Digital Encode, Amrish Singhal, chief operations officer, Spectranet, Engr. Ike Nnamani, Managing Director, Digital Realty Nigeria and Rudman Muhammed, Managing Director, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria, at the 16th Africa’s Beacon of ICT Merit and Leadership awards held in Lagos recently.

Echoing similar concerns, Amrich Singhal presented on “Responsible AI and Nigeria: Balancing Innovation, Regulation, and Cybersecurity.” He argued that the nations poised to benefit most from AI are not those with the most powerful models, but those with the most trusted systems.

“AI is a double-edged sword,” Singhal said. “It can improve productivity but also fuel cyber manipulation such as deepfakes, identity theft, disinformation. This is no longer about readiness; it’s about urgency.”

While acknowledging Nigeria’s strengths including its youthful, tech-savvy population and expanding AI adoption in sectors like healthcare, agriculture, and education, Singhal criticized regulatory frameworks like the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) and NITDA’s 2023 AI draft policy as “underdeveloped, underfunded, and poorly enforced.”

Real-World Consequences

Prof. Obadare illustrated the high stakes with real-world examples: Microsoft’s racist chatbot Tay, Amazon’s gender-biased hiring AI, and Uber’s fatal autonomous vehicle crash. “These weren’t tech failures; they were governance failures,” he warned.

He also cited cybersecurity breaches such as the 2023 hacking of ChatGPT and the leak of DeepSeek’s API keys and user data, reinforcing the point that the danger lies not just in the algorithms, but in how AI systems are designed, deployed, and governed.

What Nigeria Must Do

Both experts advocated for a multi-stakeholder approach which include the need for the government to champion AI education, enforce data laws, and establish innovation sandboxes for safe experimentation.

They also said that the private sector must prioritise ethical AI design and cybersecurity compliance, adding that the civil society must continue to raise public awareness about digital rights and AI risks, particularly for vulnerable groups.

Prof. Obadare concluded with a clear message, saying: “Governance must be embedded by design. We can’t afford to let innovation outpace responsibility.”

Singhal left the audience with a final challenge that: “AI is already here. The real question is not whether to adopt it; but how. Nigeria must decide whether AI will be our great equaliser or our greatest vulnerability.”