TLDR: A new report, ‘State of AI Policy in Africa 2025,’ reveals that Nigeria’s significant aspirations for artificial intelligence development are being hampered by a lack of dedicated funding, enforceable laws, and robust monitoring frameworks. Despite a vibrant AI ecosystem and global partnerships, the country’s AI strategy remains a policy rather than a binding law, reflecting a broader continental challenge of ambition without execution.
Nigeria, a prominent nation in Africa’s artificial intelligence landscape, is grappling with substantial obstacles in realizing its AI vision, according to the recently published ‘State of AI Policy in Africa 2025’ report. Authored by Mo Shehu and Gideon Onunwa, the report highlights a critical ‘divide between ambition and execution’ in Nigeria’s AI development, a challenge mirrored across much of the African continent. The country, despite its burgeoning innovation, local language model development (like N-ATLAS supporting Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo), and increasing global partnerships with entities such as Google and the Gates Foundation, scored 18 out of 24 on the AI Governance Maturity Index, placing it in the continent’s second tier.
The core issues identified are a conspicuous absence of a dedicated budget, a lack of enforceable legislation, and an inadequate monitoring framework. Nigeria’s draft National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2024) is built upon five pillars: infrastructure, ecosystem, adoption, responsible AI, and governance. While commendable, this strategy ‘lacks explicit budget lines or projections, relying on external partners.’ For instance, in 2024, UNDP, UNESCO, Meta, Google, and Microsoft collectively provided $3.5 million in seed funding to kickstart implementation. However, the strategy ‘has no binding legislation; it remains a policy rather than law,’ leaving it vulnerable to inconsistent application and sustainability.
This situation is not unique to Nigeria. Across 20 African countries surveyed, over half have developed national AI strategies, yet fewer than a quarter have allocated committed budgets, enacted enforceable laws, or established monitoring systems. The report underscores that AI has become a ‘test of governance capacity.’ Funding disparities are stark, with Kenya’s $1.1 billion AI budget dwarfing Zambia’s $335,000. Egypt, a regional leader, attracts significant foreign investment, including a €1.8 billion data center and a $300 million semiconductor fund. However, most African nations remain reliant on donor support or general ICT allocations, which are prone to diversion.
Furthermore, legal frameworks are lagging. While 35 African countries have data-protection statutes, very few possess AI-specific regulations. Egypt’s framework is voluntary, Ethiopia’s ethics guidelines are non-binding, and South Africa’s draft bill awaits ratification. This results in what the report terms ‘ethics without accountability,’ where moral principles lack legal enforcement. A transparency deficit also exists, with many strategies remaining unpublished or inaccessible, hindering public scrutiny and accountability.
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To bridge this significant gap between aspiration and tangible results, the authors urge African governments to: legislate AI frameworks instead of relying on non-binding strategies; fund multi-year national programs; establish independent bodies for ethics and accountability; and publish monitoring data for public scrutiny. The report concludes that ‘Africa is not behind—it is early. The task now is to make ambition durable: to move from promise to proof,’ emphasizing that countries shaping AI technology will ultimately shape their own development futures.
