GITEX Africa 2025: Africa must lead in AI-driven innovation — NITDA Boss
The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, has said that Africa has a unique opportunity to drive innovation, improve efficiency, and foster inclusive growth by combining human intelligence with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Inuwa made these remarks during a panel discussion on Harnessing AI for Strategic Leadership at the Main Stage of GITEX Africa 2025 in Marrakech, Morocco.
Addressing industry leaders from across the continent, Inuwa urged businesses and organisations to weave AI into their operational, managerial, and strategic frameworks. He stressed that this integration could unlock untapped opportunities, reshape leadership practices, and strengthen Africa’s position as a hub of AI-led innovation.
He reiterated that by aligning human abilities with AI systems, Africa can catalyse significant breakthroughs in development and growth.
“We missed the first, second, and third industrial revolutions, but this fourth one—we must not follow; we must lead,” he asserted.
Inuwa emphasised that effective leadership in today’s rapidly evolving landscape requires more than traditional skills. According to him, leaders must embrace AI not just as a supporting tool but as a collaborative force in their decision-making processes.
“AI is redefining the skills we value and the way we approach our daily work,” he said. “To lead strategically, today’s leaders must be AI-conscious and seek out ways to build co-intelligence—an approach where people and machines work together to realise a shared vision.”
He encouraged leaders to pair AI capabilities with the distinctive talents of their teams in order to generate meaningful and measurable results. However, he cautioned that strategy must always take precedence over technology.
Inuwa also shared four foundational principles for responsibly using generative AI: involving AI in organisational processes, ensuring human oversight, establishing clear boundaries, and committing to continuous improvement.
He explained that bringing AI into the decision-making space means giving it a role in day-to-day functions. Yet, it is equally important to supervise its outputs to catch errors or biases, create boundaries that uphold ethics and privacy, and treat current AI systems as early-stage tools with room for growth.
He raised concerns about the danger of using AI systems trained on data that does not represent the full diversity of global communities. He called for greater digital visibility for all cultures and demographics, noting that, “If data doesn’t recognise a community, the system won’t either.”
Presenting NITDA’s regulatory approach, Inuwa introduced the agency’s Regulatory Intelligence Framework, which focuses on three pillars: Awareness, Intelligence, and Dynamism.
“Our model for governing AI is based on the need to stay informed about the environment, to be flexible as things evolve, and to have the insight to understand data and draw meaning from it,” he said.
He outlined two regulatory strategies: a rule-based approach, where organisations follow set guidelines, and a non-rule-based model, which allows stakeholders to develop use cases and collaboratively agree on guardrails and best practices—an approach he described as especially effective for governing AI.
The panel also featured contributions from other prominent voices in tech leadership, including Philip Thigo, Special Envoy on Technology for the Republic of Kenya; Gituku Kirika, CEO of Pesalink; and Emmanuel Lubanzadio, Head of Africa at OpenAI, all of whom shared valuable insights from their own experiences in the field.
