African leaders in the digital sector have been urged to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into their business, organisational and operational models to unlock new opportunities, redefine leadership, and drive smarter decision-making toward making Africa deeply rooted in AI-driven innovation.
The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, made this call while speaking on “Harnessing AI for Strategic Leadership” during a panel session at the Main State of the GITEX Africa 2025 held in Marrakech, Morocco.
According to the spokesperson of the agency Hadiza Umra, the event aimed to create ways to explore how data-driven and intelligence-led strategies can transform business models, optimise resources, and unlock new opportunities through AI-powered processes across various nations.
The NITDA boss told policymakers, technologists, and investors that Africa, particularly Nigeria are a rising force in the global AI landscape, championing a people-first and strategy-led approach to AI development and governance.
He posited that to be effective in today’s dynamic environment, leaders must leverage AI not just as a tool, but as a partner in decision-making.
“AI is shifting the skills we value today, as well as the processes we use to do our daily work, so to drive strategic leadership, you need to be an AI-driven leader and find a way to use AI as a tool to create co-intelligence whereby you bring people and computers to work together to deliver your strategic vision as a leader,” he noted.
Inuwa stated further that “Strategy must always come first, and technology second,” even as he outlined four principles for effectively utilising generative AI which are inviting AI to the tale, maintaining human oversight, designing models with guardrails, and adopting a mindset of continuous improvement.
He however, warned against the risks of deploying AI systems built on data that fails to represent the diverse realities of global societies. He emphasized the need for digital visibility of all cultures and citizens, even as he warned that if data doesn’t see a community, the system won’t see it either.
He reeled out NITDA’s approach to governance in regulating AI through the Regulatory Intelligence Framework that is anchored on the 3 pillars of Awareness, Intelligence and Dynamism.
“In our approach to regulating AI in governance, we have a framework we call Regulatory Intelligence Framework, which as a regulator we need to be aware of the environment, we need to be dynamic because things change, and we also need to be intelligent. We need to know the data and make sense out of it,” he said.
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