The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, has urged industry leaders across the continent to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into their business, organisational, and operational models to unlock new opportunities, redefine leadership, and drive smarter decision-making toward making Africa deeply rooted in AI-driven innovation.
Inuwa made this call when he spoke on “Harnessing AI for Strategic Leadership” during a panel session at the Main State of the GITEX Africa 2025 held in Marrakech, Morocco.
The aim of the panel session was essentially to explore how data-driven and intelligence-led strategies can transform business models, optimise resources, and unlock new opportunities through AI-powered processes across various nations.
Speaking to an international audience of policymakers, technologists, and investors, the DG positioned Africa, particularly Nigeria as a rising force in the global AI landscape, championing a people-first and strategy-led approach to AI development and governance.
The DG argued that to be effective in today’s dynamic environment, leaders must evolve into AI-driven leaders and leverage technology not just as a tool, but as a partner in decision-making.
“AI is shifting the skills we value today, as well as the processes we use to do our daily work, so to drive strategic leadership, you need to be an AI-driven leader and find a way to use AI as a tool to create co-intelligence whereby you bring people and computers to work together to deliver your strategic vision as a leader,” he noted.
While urging leaders to combine AI with the unique strengths of their teams to deliver real business value, Inuwa stated that “Strategy must always come first, and technology second.”
He outlined four principles for effectively utilising generative AI which are inviting AI to the tale, maintaining human oversight, designing models with guardrails, and adopting a mindset of continuous improvement.
Inuwa explained that AI is invited to the table by giving it a role in organisational tasks, maintaining human oversight to correct bias and misjudgment, designing guardrails to ensure privacy ethics, and inclusivity, and adopting a mindset of continuous improvement by treating today’s AI as the least capable version that can be used.
He however warned against the risks of deploying AI systems built on data that fails to represent the diverse realities of global societies. Stressing the need for digital visibility of all cultures and citizens, he cautioned that if data doesn’t see a community, the system won’t see it either.
Introducing NITDA’s approach to governance in regulating AI through the Regulatory Intelligence Framework that is anchored on the 3 pillars of Awareness, Intelligence and Dynamism, the DG said: “In our approach to regulating AI in governance, we have a framework we call Regulatory Intelligence Framework, which as a regulator we need to be aware of the environment, we need to be dynamic because things change, and we also need to be intelligent. We need to know the data and make sense out of it”.
“Then we have 2 approaches, the first one is a rule-based where you can come up with certain guidelines and expect people to comply with them and we have a non-rule based, which allows them to build use cases, and based on those use cases, put the guard rails and agree on the best practices, which is always the best when it comes to AI governance,” he added.
Envisioning Africa’s AI future in the next 5 years, Inuwa painted a visionary picture where the continent will integrate AI into solving real-world challenges in every economic sector thereby leapfrogging development gaps.
Inuwa firmly averred that by augmenting human capability with AI, the continent can unlock unprecedented levels of innovation, efficiency, and inclusive growth.
“We missed the first, second, and third industrial revolutions, but this fourth one, we must lead it and not just follow.” He concluded.
Other industry leaders who shared their experiences and insightful ideas at the panel session were the Special Envoy on Technology, Republic of Kenya, Philip Thigo; CEO Pesalink, Gituku Kirika; and the Head of Africa, Open AI, Emmanuel Lubanzadio.
