Nigeria’s growing interest in artificial intelligence is entering an important phase: the conversation is moving from what AI can do to how safely and responsibly it should be used in healthcare. At a recent pre-summit webinar ahead of the Artificial Intelligence in Health Summit 2026, specialists urged Nigerian innovators, health institutions and policymakers to build AI tools around trust, local realities and meaningful human oversight.
The discussion, reported by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), placed the patient at the centre of the technology debate. AHFID wants stakeholders to develop homegrown solutions that address real problems.
Trust Must Be Built Into Healthcare AI
For Abimbola Adebakin, Chief Executive Officer of Advantage Health Africa, trust should not be treated as an afterthought. She described healthcare as a sector where people have little room for errors and confusion. Her point is relevant in Nigeria, where patients use hospitals, pharmacies and digital platforms alongside family and community advice.
Adebakin explained that Advantage Health Africa’s myMedicines platform uses familiar channels such as WhatsApp before bringing AI into the user experience. She said this gradual approach can help people understand who is behind a technology and how it works.
AI is being explored for practical healthcare tasks, including helping people understand possible drug interactions, medicine side effects and storage guidance. Technology can also support pharmacy demand forecasting and inventory management, showing that AI does not have to replace healthcare workers to be useful.
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Human Oversight, Local Design and Privacy
Dr Chinonso Egemba, co-founder of AwaDoc, raised another challenge: the growing difficulty of separating genuine health information from AI-generated misinformation and deepfakes.
He argued that the public cannot identify every manipulated message without access to trusted information. He therefore called for verified information through trusted community structures and local languages.
A KPMG and University of Melbourne study cited during the webinar found that 59 per cent of Nigerians surveyed reported experiencing the loss of human interaction and connection because of AI. The finding adds context to the experts’ insistence that healthcare AI should retain a human-in-the-loop approach.
That means AI may help provide information at scale, but patients should still have access to healthcare professionals when a situation requires clinical judgement, specialised explanation or human support. The World Health Organization has similarly said AI for health should place ethics and human rights at the centre of design, deployment and use.
Dr Kieva Chris-Amusan, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Fertitude, said adoption of AI-powered healthcare tools will depend heavily on whether users believe the systems are safe, private, accurate and genuinely useful.
She pointed to the need for technology that reflects African experiences rather than relying entirely on assumptions drawn from Western populations. For Nigerian users, this could mean supporting languages such as Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, recognising local accents, using familiar examples and making patient histories easier to manage.
Privacy is equally important. Nigeria’s Data Protection Act identifies health status as sensitive personal data, making responsible handling of patient information a major consideration for digital health developers. The Nigeria Data Protection Commission also provides guidance around Data Privacy Impact Assessments for high-risk processing, including healthcare services.
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Back Story
The latest debate comes as Nigeria prepares for the AI in Health Summit 2026 in Abuja, scheduled for October 19 and 20. AHFID says the gathering will bring policymakers, healthcare leaders, researchers, innovators and other stakeholders together to examine how artificial intelligence can strengthen health systems.
The wider discussion reflects a sector moving towards practical deployment. Across Africa, programmes and research are exploring AI for diagnostics, health coaching and public health services. Experts also stress that infrastructure, data quality, interoperability, regulation and workforce readiness must grow alongside innovation.
For Nigeria, progress will depend not only on AI products launched, but also on patient trust, effective use by healthcare workers, community understanding and institutional accountability.
That is why the call for human-centred AI is becoming more significant as Nigeria considers how to scale digital health responsibly without losing patient confidence. It also requires appropriate clinical judgement at the point of care. In healthcare, the technology may be artificial, but the needs it is designed to serve remain deeply human.
