By Martin Ekpeke
Oluwaseun Dania, Managing Director of Alpha-Geek Technologies and a recognized figure in African technology, last week at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting launching the Global Dialogue on AI Governance in New York, delivered a powerful message to Africa and indeed the world.
He insisted that Africa’s voice, representing 1.4 billion people and the world’s youngest workforce, must be amplified and included in global AI governance.
Speaking as a bridge-builder between innovation and equity, Mr. Dania asserted that the success of the AI revolution should be measured not merely by GDP spikes but by lives uplifted, stressing that Africa is not just an early adopter of mobile-first AI but is poised to be a co-creator of its future.
“In a world where AI is reshaping destinies, this dialogue must ensure no continent or community is left behind,” Dania told the high-level multi-stakeholder meeting, acknowledging AI’s transformative promise in Africa and citing its potential for leapfrogging infrastructure gaps and powering secure digital economies, including burgeoning fintech revolutions and stablecoin initiatives.
However, drawing on his expertise in information security, he warned of AI’s “shadows, including deepfakes eroding trust, biased algorithms perpetuating inequality, and unchecked data monopolies widening the North-South divide.
To counter these risks and harness the potential, he highlighted Nigeria’s commitment to an ethical, growth-focused approach, noting that the Nigerian government, through the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, launched the National AI Strategy in April 2025, which is a collaborative blueprint projected to contribute $15 billion to Nigeria’s GDP by 2030 and aims to equip 70% of the youth workforce with AI capabilities by the same year.
Mr. Dania emphasized that global governance cannot be drafted in echo chambers of Silicon Valley or Geneva boardrooms and put forward three key priorities to ensure AI innovation meets equity: Equitable Access, which mandates open-source AI frameworks and capacity-building funds to equip Global South innovators, preventing the mere extraction of data for profit; Ethical Safeguards, which seeks to embed African-led ethical standards for bias audits and privacy-by-design, drawing from the communal value of ubuntu (humanity towards others); and Resilient Infrastructure, which calls for investing in AI for development, such as predictive analytics for pandemics and energy optimization, while simultaneously fortifying systems against weaponized misuse.
He concluded by urging stakeholders to treat the dialogue as a covenant for a just AI future. “Africa is ready to co-create, not merely comply,” he declared.