Government laying AI foundations for businesses to thrive, says Tijani

Nigeria’s Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, said the federal government is investing in the infrastructure, skills and policies needed for artificial intelligence adoption. He cited a 90,000-kilometre open-access fibre-optic network, shared computing capacity for researchers, a goal of training three million technical talents and a government-backed language model that communicates in Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Ibibio and accented English. Tijani said businesses must turn these foundations into products, jobs and opportunities, as telecommunications liberalisation in 2001 helped drive growth across other sectors. At the Oxford Global Think Tank, convener Arunma Oteh urged Africa to help shape AI’s future, while Chidinma Okolo said the continent’s challenge is owning the technology and the economic value it creates.