Nigeria’s Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, has called on African countries to show more urgency and intentionality in the acquisition and deployment of Artificial intelligence.
He made the call Monday in his opening remarks at the ongoing GITEX Conference holding in Abuja.
He stated that unless Africa takes urgent steps to close the widening gap the continent will remain behind as a continent of consumers.
“Artificial Intelligence is set to redefine productivity everywhere. Across the world,
nations are already applying AI to automate processes, analyze data at scale,
and optimize resources in ways we could only imagine a decade ago”, Dr. Bosun Tijani said.
“The risk for Africa is clear: if we are not deliberate, AI will widen the global
productivity gap. Countries already ahead will move even faster, and those of us
still catching up will find ourselves even further behind.
Citing examples to butress his point, the Minister said, “Let me illustrate with agriculture. In Nigeria today, the average maize yield is about 2.5 tonnes per hectare. In South Africa, it is 5 to 6 tonnes. In Brazil, it is 10 to 12 tonnes. The difference is
not land, or even rainfall. It is productivity. And that productivity is powered by
precision agriculture—driven by connectivity, data, and increasingly, AI.
“In Brazil, farmers use AI-driven soil sensors and predictive analytics
to decide the exact time to plant and harvest.
“In South Africa, satellite imaging and drone technology, combined
with AI models, allow farmers to monitor crops in real time and respond to threats faster.
“Meanwhile, in Nigeria, many farmers still rely on guesswork and traditional practices because they lack access to these tools.
The result? Farmers elsewhere are producing four to five times more food on the
same land.
But according to him, it is not just agriculture. He cited examples in education, logistics and finance stressing that ,”AI is becoming the engine of productivity. And
productivity is the foundation of competitiveness, wealth creation, and jobs.
“If we cannot close this gap, Africa risks becoming a continent of
consumers—importing food, importing services, importing innovation—instead of
producers and leaders. That is not the Africa we want.
“That is why AI must not be treated as an afterthought. It must be at the centre of
our strategy as African leaders.
Stating categorically that he doesn’t believe in wholesale harmonisation of strategies, he advocated balancing Sovereignty with Unification, leveraging our youthful population,digitizing our realities and building Infrastructure together.
“Each of our countries must pursue AI based on our own realities and data. But
we cannot afford fragmentation. We need shared standards, common protocols,
and harmonized governance frameworks—so that our collective strength is
greater than the sum of our parts.
“Africa’s young people are our greatest advantage. AI will disrupt jobs—but it will
also create new ones. We must prepare our youth now, with initiatives like
Nigeria’s 3 Million Technical Talent program, and similar projects across the
continent. This is how we build a workforce that is future-ready.
“We must digitize our lives, our languages, our farms, our health systems—at
scale. Without African datasets, we will forever depend on models trained
elsewhere, on data that does not reflect us.
“AI depends on three things: connectivity, compute, and clean energy. Today,
these remain expensive and unevenly distributed across Africa. As leaders, we
must collaborate on medium and long-term infrastructure plans that bring down
costs and unlock participation for everyone.
“The decisions we make today will shape how Africa participates in this AI-driven
world. Our children must be able to look back and say: our leaders prepared us,
our leaders secured our future, our leaders refused to let Africa be left behind.
That is the responsibility before us. And that is the opportunity of Artificial
Intelligence for Africa,” the Minister concluded.