Mubarak Raji: Need for an African-focused governance approach to Artificial Intelligence

A legal practitioner, Artificial Intelligence governance and privacy scholar, Mubarak Raji, has called for stronger regulatory frameworks to guide the development and deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems across African countries.

Mubarak, a PhD researcher in Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, made this submission during the Panel Discussion at the 7th Privacy Symposium Africa 2025 held in Lagos, Nigeria, on November 28, 2025, which Uchenna Anebuna anchored. He joined four other panelists, including Spiff Ebikara, Ridwan Badmus, Mat Matracci, and Ebere Josephine Uba, from different sectors to examine issues surrounding AI governance in Africa. Speaking virtually from the United States on the topic, ” AI & Data: The Ethics of AI in Africa – Who is Training the Algorithm?” Mr. Raji identified four major concepts underpinning Africa’s AI governance challenges: data sovereignty, surveillance capitalism, data colonialism, and digital colonialism.

“We cannot allow somebody else to tell our story and expect it to fit into our realities,” he said, stressing the importance of African nations taking ownership of their data ecosystems.

According to him, African countries have legal frameworks to regulate data protection, but not other digital infrastructure or AI. Many of these AI systems remain heavily influenced or controlled by foreign jurisdictions, and this may result in bias and power imbalances.

He further emphasized that foreign actors mostly control digital infrastructure across Africa. Therefore, surveillance capitalism made it possible to gather data, which they used to analyze individuals’ online behavior, and, with the aid of algorithms, predict what people would do. This always affected Africans because most people didn’t know the implications.

On data and digital colonialism, he referred to the colonial era in Africa; he said the colonial masters’ mission was for their benefit, but to the detriment of African countries. The process of data accumulation is also taking a colonial dimension.

However, he considered how the African legal framework could be shifted to address those challenges. He noted that African countries should invest in infrastructure and build sustainable Al data centers, rather than relying on foreign servers to fulfill their obligations.

Also, he implored the African government to fund research laboratories and innovation hubs, and to support onboarding AI tools through awareness and education. He further advocated for local laws because most laws in African countries were imported, just as the GDPR approach has been adopted in many data protection laws.

In addition, he said, building a people-oriented or participatory governance framework is crucial. An AI governance framework should not be the responsibility of lawmakers alone in African countries; privacy engineers, technical experts who write code, academia, policy experts, civil societies, and ordinary users should also be involved.

He thereby calls for synergy among legislative members to work together for the betterment of African countries. He encourages them to make their bills accessible to the public for comment, thereby making the policy-making process transparent and well coordinated.

He concluded by arguing that African policymakers should prioritize an ethical Al framework that reflects local realities.