Industry stakeholders have continued to debate the issues around Artificial Intelligence governance in Nigeria, designed to unlock the country’s digital economy while safeguarding citizens’ rights. While some are calling for collaborative approach to AI governance, others are of the view that innovation without regulation will pose risk and that regulation without innovation is stagnation, writes Emma Okonji
The on-going debate on the planned regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Nigeria, was again brought to the front burner by T&A Legal, during the hosting of its 2026 AI Summit in Lagos.
Themed: ‘Artificial Intelligence in Nigeria: Balancing Regulation and Innovation,’ the summit brought together key voices from the public and private sectors to deliberate on the opportunities, challenges, and regulatory framework required to position Nigeria as a leader in responsible AI adoption across Africa.
Co-founding Partner of T&A Legal, Oluseyi Adisa, in her welcome speech, said while countries across the world were still experimenting with governance models, Nigeria has a unique opportunity to develop an AI framework tailored to its realities.
According to her, while AI will present enormous economic opportunities, with projections indicating it can contribute billions of dollars to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and transform agriculture, healthcare, education, governance and other critical sectors, the gains must be supported by appropriate safeguards against emerging risks such as algorithmic bias, data misuse, deepfakes, cyber threats, privacy violations and election interference.
AI Governance Debate
Expressing her concerns at the summit, CEO, CarbonAI, Debola Ibiyode, called for caution and diplomacy in regulating AI in Nigeria. According to her, “Innovation without regulation is a risk, while regulation without innovation is stagnation.”
Balancing rapid technological growth with robust guardrails has become the defining challenge of the tech ecosystem, as Nigeria accelerates its adoption of Artificial Intelligence. Sustainable economic growth from AI can only be unlocked through a framework of Responsible AI and a new global and local approach, she said.
Ibiyode challenged the notion that regulation acts as a brake on economic progress. Instead, she argued that without clear rules, the trust required for commercial success will collapse.
She however said at some point, without regulation, economic growth would not happen because there would not be profitability.
“As humans, we know how to do one thing well: to always seek the negative part of a good thing. We need to put regulations in place so citizens are protected from threats like deepfakes,” Ibiyode further said.
Other stakeholder were of the view that regulation could not be inherently bad. According to them, where regulation is done right, it encourages innovation, it encourages investment, it encourages trust in the ecosystem. And that’s why we’re not inherently against regulation, they said.
They however said when regulation is done wrong, the risk would outweigh the benefit for the entire ecosystem. “So we believe that when we’re regulating AI, for example, it’s important to start from a place of understanding what exists. So what are the current laws? What are the gaps? And then we begin to ask ourselves, do we need new regulation? they further said.
Divergent Views
During a panel session at the AI summit, panelists had divergent views about AI governance in Nigeria.
The CEO, Pop Central, a media platform for the young audience, Mr. Yinka Obebe, painted a scenario about AI governance by describing it as a large empty field that is fenced and locked up, while preventing people from using it.
He explained that countries like America and China were already ahead of other countries in AI development, yet they are not regulating AI. He therefore wondered why Nigerian government should ever think of regulating AI, insisting that regulation will stifle innovation around AI.
“I want us to understand that the conversation around AI is about economic architecture and value capture. There are two races in front of us, and there’s one that we can never win. For regulation, we are not going to win it.
“What regulation does is that it allows us to have something we call the policy wall that allows us to create wealth. In cement, Nigeria did it with the entire backward integration. In residential fertilizer initiative, Nigeria did it. In telecoms, Nigeria did it. Nigerian government thinks it is using regulation and policy wall to create value for people, but we’re not at the point where we can create that value,” Obebe said.
The Founder, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Nigeria (RAIN), Dr. Olusola Sayeed Ayoola, who had a contrary view to Obebe’s thought, said regulation must entail coordination of AI’s development and use, and promotion across education and infrastructure development.
“Bringing up the case of the United States of America and other leading countries that are not regulating AI should not be used as a yardstick to leave AI unregulated in Nigeria. Because while we, as a nation, are trying to be very transparent, some other nations are not too transparent because of national security.
“The same America that may not be regulating AI, is against other technology innovation in its country. The same America would limit how much of NVIDIA’s GPUs can be sold to any other country because they want to have that strategic advantage,” Ayoola said.
According to him, Nigeria lost in the industrial revolution, agricultural revolution, and information revolution. This AI revolution, we must win. And I don’t want us to assume that it’s too late for us to grow that space. We can, and we would, Ayoola said.
The Director, Business Development at Unitellas International Limited, Dr. Jimisayo Awokola, who also had a contrary view, said: “Asking whether Nigeria needs a stand-alone AI regulation and then another body that will take the responsibility of coordinating AI, I think the answer is yes in both cases. It’s just that it is the sequence. So I will suggest that Nigeria will still need both a stand-alone AI hub as well as a body that will sit on top of the other existing agencies to function as a coordination unit to help navigate the AI terrain very well. I say this because the speed and the rate at which AI is growing is amazing.”
So, we need to have a body built with that same kind of infrastructure that will be able to help Nigeria track what is happening in the world of AI and then help it to be able to assist every other local players on how best to navigate the terrain. So, we need both. It’s just that the sequence and the approach is what we need to look into,” Awokola further said.
Other panelists were of the view that regulation should address specific segments of the entire AI revolution.
Some said Nigeria must not try to place a ban on AI. According to them, If we want to encourage adoption, we have to stratify or create tiers of levels of regulations where we can say, for this particular use case, there is no serious need for regulation. But also, it must be based on the skill.
Other said there must be a case where people who were already earning from the use of AI must be heavily regulated.
During a stakeholder engagement forum at the AI summit, a representative from the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), was of the opinion that AI is no longer an emerging technology, because it has been around for some time and it has come to stay.
“From the NDPC perspective, one of the things that we have seen is that everyone is talking about AI adoption, and there is need for regulation to protect the citizens,” the NDPC representative said. According to her, other countries are also having that conversation. And one of the key things that they mentioned, and which the commission now has started implementing, is that if you don’t know what they’re trying to do, how are you able to regulate or govern it.
So, we need to understand the technology to be able to provide) the appropriate safeguards or requirements needed in ensuring that the technology is beneficial to all, she said.
The Second Vice Chair of the MBA section of Business Law Technology Committee, Ifeoma Ben, spoke about ethics in AI revolution.
“As lawyers, we know that our clients make use of AI technology. Sometimes they might even draft contracts and send it for review. So we have gone beyond the elementary knowledge that even before they consult lawyers these days, they have already made their research with Chat GPT,” Ben said, while insisting on ethical use of AI.
Mrs. Morayo Adisa from MasterCard, spoke about her experience as current staff of Mastercard and her experience as former government employee, regarding the use of AI.
According to her, the government will not fold its hands and do nothing about AI regulation. “Now, the question is how much impute does private sector make into these regulations when they happen? Do we just stand on the sidelines and run commentary to say that the government has come again with their laws?
Government needs to do more by bringing more stakeholders into the room, into that conversation of AI governance.
“So, I think that if we’re going to take away anything from this conversation and from my contributions, it’s two things: AI is a tool, number one. Number two, governments must respond, and that’s what they’re doing and I think government is responding to the best of their capacity,” Adisa said.
