Nonye Ujam
Every major national transformation has an unseen force behind it. In the industrial age, it was engineers who translated ideas into infrastructure. In the internet era, it was network builders and platform pioneers who turned connectivity into socioeconomic change. In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), however, it is policymakers and public sector officials who will determine whether AI becomes a driver of prosperity or a missed opportunity.
Across the world, evidence is mounting that the countries making the fastest progress with AI are not necessarily those with the most advanced technology, but those that invested early in institutional capability.
Recent Microsoft research shows that countries accelerating AI adoption deployed AI within the public sector early on, well before generative AI became widely accessible. It was introduced gradually, embedded into public services and governance processes, and socialized through national conversations. When generative AI arrived, it felt familiar rather than disruptive.
Research from the OECD explains why this sequencing matters. Studies show that AI delivers gains in efficiency, accountability, and responsiveness only when governments have the skills to move beyond experimentation. Where civil servants understand the technology well enough to ask informed questions, coordinate across agencies and exercise oversight, AI initiatives are more likely to scale.
Many governments today are running AI pilots, but where AI literacy is uneven, projects often struggle to scale or fail to translate into lasting public value.
Keeping pace with the rapid evolution of AI
Nigeria’s ambition is clear. The National AI Strategy sets out a vision of ethical, inclusive AI anchored in local talent, strong governance and strategic partnerships. This reflects a deep understanding that the AI opportunity begins with a new era of governance. With the country positioning for AI leadership on the continent, the opportunity to accelerate AI diffusion remains palpable. Growth in National AI adoption in 2025 was evident, albeit modest, with studies pointing to skills gaps, particularly in data engineering, machine learning, and AI system optimization. This aligns with broader ecosystem insights that identify skills development as central to accelerating adoption and readiness.
This challenge is not unique to Nigeria. Globally, the pace of AI advancement is outstripping the ability of institutions to keep up. Governments are navigating how to adapt policy, regulation, and delivery systems in real time.
Historically, effective public sector reform has been anchored in capability. Financial systems improve when regulators understand markets; health systems work when administrators understand delivery systems. AI follows the same logic. Public sector leaders do not need to become technologists, but they do require sufficient fluency to design effective policies, assess risk, and guide innovation with confidence.
What building public sector skills looks like in practice
Global research suggests that effective public sector skilling follows a clear progression. It begins with understanding where skills gaps exist across institutions and using that insight to shape learning priorities.
In many countries, this work starts at the leadership and policymaker level. Governments that make early progress with AI ensure that senior officials and legislators have a working understanding of emerging technologies, enabling them to shape laws, policies, and oversight frameworks with foresight rather than hindsight.
Leading public institutions increasingly recognize that AI capability must also be built across non‑technical roles, raising overall digital literacy and ensuring that decisionmakers throughout the organization can engage meaningfully with technological change.
In Nigeria, capacity building engagements with members of the National Assembly and senior leaders across ministries, departments and agencies through a specially curated Transformational Leadership in AI program, offer an early illustration of this principle in action. By starting with policymakers and executives, these initiatives help lay the foundations for informed oversight, coherent regulation and confident leadership as AI evolves.
From this base, skills development begins to broaden across institutions. Agencies start to build practical literacy in areas such as data governance, responsible AI and cybersecurity; capabilities that are essential to ensuring AI adoption aligns with national priorities. Targeted, agency-specific programs, including training delivered in collaboration with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), demonstrate how contextualized learning can strengthen institutional readiness.
As confidence builds, the focus naturally shifts toward scale. On‑demand learning, internal learning champions and cross‑agency communities of practice become increasingly important for reaching the large and diverse public sector workforce. National programs like Developers in Government (DevsInGov) and the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) initiatives point to the opportunity for wider ecosystem development to accelerate AI diffusion.
The common thread across these stages is relevance. Training that reflects public sector realities consistently proves more effective than generic digital courses designed for commercial environments. As Nigeria builds on these early examples of best practice, the opportunity lies in deepening this approach, ensuring that public sector skills keep pace with the country’s AI ambitions.
Turning skills into momentum
Ultimately, a capable public sector acts as a multiplier. Confident institutions create clearer rules, build trust, and provide the predictability that innovation requires. Policies are shaped earlier, risks are managed more proactively, and private sector adoption accelerates as uncertainty declines. Over time, these effects compound, transforming isolated use cases into ecosystem transformation. Nigeria’s AI opportunity remains significant. With a rapidly expanding digital ecosystem, the country is positioned to shape AI development across Africa.
Realizing this opportunity will depend not only on technology, but on sustained investment in institutional capability. In the years ahead, Nigeria’s most consequential AI investment may not be in hardware or software, but in the people who shape how these tools are deployed in public interest.
Nonye Ujam is Government Affairs Director, Microsoft West Africa