The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, has expressed confidence in Africa’s potential to lead the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution.
Speaking at GITEX Africa in Marrakech, Morocco, Inuwa urged African industry leaders to integrate AI into their operational and strategic models to unlock fresh opportunities and drive smarter decision-making. Delivering his remarks during a panel session titled “Harnessing AI for Strategic Leadership,” he said such integration would redefine leadership across the continent and foster AI-driven innovation.
Addressing an international audience of policymakers, technologists, and investors, the DG positioned Nigeria as a rising force in the global AI ecosystem. He emphasized the importance of a people-first and strategy-led approach to AI development, stressing that leadership in today’s dynamic world must evolve into AI-driven leadership. “AI is shifting the skills we value and the processes we use,” he said, advocating for leaders to create “co-intelligence” by aligning people and technology to achieve strategic goals. He added that while technology is critical, strategy must always come first.
Inuwa outlined four principles for harnessing generative AI: inviting AI to the table by assigning it roles, ensuring human oversight to guard against bias, designing systems with ethical guardrails, and adopting a mindset of continuous improvement.
He warned against using AI systems trained on biased or non-inclusive data, noting that communities not represented in data are often excluded from AI solutions. He also introduced NITDA’s Regulatory Intelligence Framework, which operates on awareness, intelligence, and dynamism, to ensure responsive and adaptive AI governance.
The NITDA boss explained that the framework features both rule-based and non-rule-based approaches, allowing stakeholders to build use cases and develop best practices. He envisioned that in the next five years, Africa could harness AI to solve real-world challenges and bridge development gaps across all economic sectors.
“We missed the first, second, and third industrial revolutions,” Inuwa stated, “but this fourth one, we must lead it.” Other speakers at the session included Kenya’s Special Envoy on Technology, Philip Thigo; CEO of Pesalink, Gituku Kirika; and Head of Africa at Open AI, Emmanuel Lubanzadio.