Nigeria has at long last entered the global AI conversation with its draft national strategy, signalling a desire to shift from being passive users of technology to becoming innovators, regulators and creators. But while this is a welcome step, the success of Nigeria’s AI policy will depend on whether it adapts, rather than simply adopts, best-practice frameworks from overseas. A useful point of comparison is the United Kingdom’s flexible, sector-specific, pro-innovation model.
In the UK, the government published its “A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation” White Paper in March 2023, favouring existing regulators across sectors to apply common principles rather than creating a new overarching regulator. This gives companies and innovators much more room to experiment, while enabling oversight through familiar channels. For Nigeria, that suggests an opportunity: rather than waiting to build a brand-new regulator for artificial intelligence, we can empower existing institutions in key sectors to interpret the country’s AI policy for their contexts.
Consider the regulatory bodies in Nigeria: the Central Bank for the financial sector, the National Broadcasting Commission for media, the Film and Video Censors Board for visual content. If each of these were empowered—with clear guidelines aligned to the national AI framework—to handle AI matters in their domain, the AI policy would become more effective, adaptive and rooted in our Nigerian realities. As one analyst puts it: “Developmental ideas can be borrowed from advanced countries… then indigenised according to the needs of the recipient culture or society.”
In short, one major lesson from the UK is: don’t over-centralise. Nigeria’s AI policy should build on sectoral regulators, with guidelines that respect local practice, not one-size-fits-all mandates.
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Voice, language and culture — invisible but critical layers
A major pitfall for many national strategies is assuming that technology is culture-neutral. That is a mistake — particularly in Nigeria, with its multilingual society, informal economy and rich heritage of storytelling. If Nigeria’s AI policy does not speak our cultural language, it risks becoming alienating, exclusionary or even harmful.
For example, if natural-language processing (NLP) tools, voice assistants, or intelligent systems ignore Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba or Pidgin — or treat them as afterthoughts — millions of Nigerians will be left out of the transformation. As the draft strategy itself notes: “If AI cannot understand Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, or Pidgin, then it will inevitably exclude millions.” Techpoint Africa
Bringing culture into the policy means more than translation. It means embedding our informal economy, our traditions, our storytelling, our oral archive, into the design of AI systems. Our informal traders, artisans, market women, and transport workers, who contribute more than 60 % of Nigeria’s GDP. If the AI policy turns only to the formal sectors, it will bypass the heart of our productive economy.
In practice, this could mean: funding Nigerian-language NLP research; building voice assistants for farmers in Pidgin; supporting immersive media that archive oral folklore with generative AI; ensuring that ethics guidelines reference religious, linguistic and cultural diversity in Nigeria—not just Western liberal frameworks. Our AI policy must recognise that ethics and values differ: privacy, identity, voice, and respect may hold distinct meanings in our context. The UK model emphasises transparency, safety, fairness and accountability. Nigeria’s version must adapt these to our multiple identities, our informal systems and our multilingual society.
Embedding capacity and informal economy into the blueprint
Another dimension where Nigeria’s AI policy can benefit from UK lessons is human capacity and ecosystem readiness. The UK has intentionally built pipelines into AI careers: apprenticeships, creative-tech clusters, and partnerships that bring designers, artists, educators into the fold — not just coders.
Nigeria’s existing initiative, the “3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT)” programme, is a good start. But if the national strategy only focuses on formal tech talent, we risk excluding the many Nigerians who work in informal sectors, often without formal credentialing, yet who could benefit massively from AI-powered tools. The AI policy should therefore create inclusive pathways: training informal-economy participants, supporting creative industries (films, storytelling, media), and enabling hybrid skills — technology + culture + entrepreneurship.
Again, drawing from the UK, their framework does not over-regulate; it leaves room for experimentation, for growth, for regional innovation clusters. Nigeria too, can frame its AI policy as enabling, not restrictive: create dedicated funds, innovation hubs, tech-culture labs, regional centres outside Lagos, modest regulatory burdens, and a strong push into local language services.
Furthermore, Nigeria’s economy is heavily informal — trading, transport, and artisanship dominate. The AI policy must view these sectors as innovation opportunities rather than afterthoughts. For instance, could market women use voice-based AI in Pidgin to forecast demand? Could transport unions deploy simple AI driver assistants? If the national strategy recognises the informal sectors as core adoption zones, not fringe use-cases, it will be far more inclusive.
From draft to living document — making the policy count
The draft national strategy for Nigeria is bold and welcome, but a blueprint is not enough. For the AI policy to have real impact, it must become a living document: dynamic, responsive, grounded in real Nigerian contexts and anchored in accountability.
First, implementation must be sector-specific and decentralised. Assign roles to existing regulators (finance, broadcast, film, transport, agriculture) with clear AI-guideline mandates. Ensure the AI policy makes it clear how those regulators coordinate, share best practices, and train for AI oversight.
Second, language and culture must be central. Set measurable targets for localisation: number of Nigerian languages supported, number of informal-sector use-cases adopted, number of creative industry partnerships. Make sure ethics frameworks include traditional voices: religious leaders, linguists, artists, and traders. The AI policy must listen.
Third, build inclusive talent pipelines. Fund bootcamps not just in Lagos, but across states; partner with creative industries, informal-sector associations, universities and technical colleges. Incentivise interdisciplinary programmes that combine coding with local knowledge, culture, media, and agriculture. The AI policy must empower the many, not just a techno-elite.
Fourth, monitor and iterate. Define metrics: adoption levels in informal sectors; number of local-language systems; innovations emerging from regional clusters; bias and fairness audits in Nigerian contexts. Every year, the national strategy should be updated. The AI policy is not static.
Finally, ensure funding and investment follow the ambition. Support for immersive media, oral-history archives, voice-AI in local languages, and region-specific innovation hubs. The UK’s example shows that investing in immersive tech, cultural clusters, and regional labs can pay dividends. Nigeria’s AI policy must match ambition with budget and infrastructure.
Conclusion
Nigeria has an important moment before us: the chance to define what African artificial intelligence actually looks like. If we borrow wisely from the UK-style model — one that emphasises sectoral regulation, flexible frameworks, innovation-friendly oversight — and then customise it deeply to our Nigerian cultural, economic and linguistic realities, we have a real shot at building a meaningful AI ecosystem.
Our national strategy must speak our language—literally and culturally—and serve not only formal sectors but our great informal economy, our storytellers, our market women, our transport unions, our filmmakers, our communities. The AI policy must be rooted in Nigeria, not imported wholesale. As the draft strategy says of itself, “to be a global leader in harnessing the transformative power of AI through responsible, ethical and inclusive innovation”.
If we get this right, we won’t just be catching up: we will be creating a distinctly Nigerian model of AI — one grounded in our language, our markets, our culture and our future. Let that be the story of our next chapter.
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