Vice President Kashim Shettima visited Akwa Ibom on Monday to launch the second phase of the federal government’s National Human Capital Development programme (HCD); but the visit underscored a few subtexts that require further examination. In the first place, many people, including President Tinubu’s ardent supporters, do not know that the federal government has such a programme, and a lot more would not imagine why Akwa Ibom was chosen for its launch. The expression ‘Human Capital Development’ has been loosely used by many politicians during campaigns, but I’m not quite sure if its significance is well understood.

In the private sector, HCD refers simply to a range of functions that pertain to staff recruitment, training, promotion and career planning and development; but as a government programme, it has far broader scope and connotation, indicating the process of developing skills, knowledge and competencies that enhance an individual’s productivity and earning potential. It therefore involves investments in education; training and health that improve a person’s ability to contribute to economy and society. The National HCD programme which Shettima unveiled in Uyo is a federal government programme domiciled in the office of the Vice President to promote education, health, nutrition, labour, climate change adaption, clean energy and gender inclusivity. Over the years, Akwa Ibom State has made significant strides in these areas - Gov. Eno has even incorporated them into his ARISE Agenda – to warrant the VP’s public acknowledgement and endorsement.

The government has been implementing free and compulsory primary and secondary education for over 20 years now. The programme was later expanded to include payment of WAEC and NECO fees for all students registered in its public schools. Every year, the government spends between N600 million and N800 million every year to pay for these exam fees for graduating secondary students. Very few states in the federation have sustained such a policy in the last 26 years. The Eno administration has gone further by remodeling some of the 1,110 primary schools in the state into well-equipped world-class leaning centres. I hope that very soon all primary schools in the state would be of this standard.

How about health? The state has some of the best health facilities in the country. Primary health centres in every LGA are being overhauled and reequipped by the current administration, coming in the footsteps of the last administration which invested heavily in upgrading general hospitals across the state. The outcome of these investments in primary and secondary healthcare was announced by the VP himself. ‘’With an under-five mortality rate of 80, compared to the national average of 110, and with only 3.5% of primary school-age children out of school – far below the national average of 25.6% - your state is not merely compliant with our national vision. You are ahead of the national curve. And I assure you the federal government stands ready to partner hand-in-hand with you’’, the VP said at the launch of the HCD in Uyo.

What this means is that out of every 1,000 under-five children in Akwa Ibom State, 80 die before they reach five years of age. This is a far better performance than the national average of 110. But we should do far better. No child in Akwa Ibom should die. When Obong Victor Attah was governor, his wife Mrs Allisson Attah recognized childhood malnutrition as a big problem in the state. To address this, she implemented a scheme that taught our rural women how to augment infant feeding with protein. In charge of that programme was the late Prof (Mrs) Etuk, a biochemist and daughter of late Dr. Clement Isong.

I interviewed the late Prof (Mrs) Etuk several years ago, and was moved by the ingenuity of Allison Attah in eradicating incidents of childhood malnutrition in the state. Another First Lady later came up with another brilliant idea that further enhanced HCD in the state. Mrs Unoma Ekaette Akpabio introduced a programme that supports women with multiple-births. Any Akwa Ibom woman who gave birth to twins; triplets or more received visits and financial support from the government. I hope this programme is still alive in the Ministry of Women Affairs. My wife was so impressed by this programme that she thought all the other states should emulate Akwa Ibom.

Enter Gov. Umo Eno. Right from inception, this ordained pastor has made it clear that his administration would be heavily tilted towards human capital development and at the core is uplifting the less privileged and the poor. He has established Ibom Leadership and Entrepreneurship Development Centre (Ibom-LED) to train and offer financial support to young businessmen and women in different fields. He’s also supporting thousands of artisans and farmers across the state with cash and equipment worth about N5 billion in a massive empowerment programme. This is meant to stimulate rural economy; create jobs and augment standards of living.

But unfortunately, some elite members of the society are displeased with this because they think that it’s a waste of resources. What’s wrong with the government providing assistance to farmers; micro and small businesses operating at the LGAs? These are the people who produce the food we eat and create jobs for themselves and others. yet, the government is only spending N5 billion of the N950 billion budgeted for the state this year – that’s just 0.5% of the total budget. As I said to some friends, it is better for the government to invest N5 billion on farmers and small businesses across the state than spend that much to purchase high-end SUVs and houses as gifts to some ‘’political stakeholders’’ in Abuja.

Vice President Shettima has commended the governor ‘’for not only adopting the HCD framework but also localizing its operation and placing people in the centre of public policies’’. The VP said Akwa Ibom is the first state ‘’in the nation to localize the HCD vision in its truest form…by adopting the strategies in local government areas’’. I congratulate the state for this achievement.

Governance is more about responsibility than just holding an office. It is more about making impact and not merely making a show of power with all its paraphernalia. In an era where political rhetoric often eclipses concrete achievement, Anambra State Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo’s recent town hall meetings with Anambra’s Diaspora communities in Lagos and Abuja capture the true essence of governance. The well-attended meetings were beyond political grandstanding and represented something far more significant: the embodiment of accountability, transparency, and integrity in governance.

The packed venues in both cities testified to the governor’s drawing power and positive perception among Ndi Anambra living outside their home state. Indeed, what unfolded during the interactive sessions was not the typical political theatre of vague promises and evasive answers, but rather a logical presentation of a three-year scorecard backed by verifiable data and tangible results.

Professor Soludo, leveraging his academic background, approached these town halls with the precision of a scholar presenting research findings. His detailed exposition of achievements across infrastructure, education, healthcare, security, economic transformation, tourism, and more painted a picture of an administration guided by strategic vision rather than political expediency.

Particularly noteworthy was the genuine interactive engagement that characterised these meetings. Far from the scripted questions and rehearsed responses that often dominate such forums, attendees engaged in robust, spontaneous, sometimes challenging dialogues with their governor. This willingness to face direct questioning from citizens demonstrates a level of confidence that comes only from having substantial accomplishments to defend.

The endorsement from former Governor and Senator Chris Ngige at the Abuja town hall carried special weight. When Senator Ngige declared that he “came, saw and confirmed” that all the stories about Governor Soludo’s monumental strides are not mere publicity stunts, it represented another poignant cross-verification of Governor Soludo’s claims. Coming from a political figure with his own significant legacy in the state, this validation transcended partisan lines and spoke to observable realities on the ground, affirming the well-known fact there is no opposition in Anambra that can stop Governor Soludo’s re-election.

Throughout the Lagos and Abuja engagements, Governor Soludo consistently emphasized his unifying vision captured in the mantra: “One State, One People, One Agenda.” This philosophy directly challenges the divisive politics of regional favouritism that has plagued many Nigerian states. By declaring that he does not see Anambra as north, south, or central districts but as a unified entity with shared destiny, Governor Soludo is promoting a new political identity based on common interests rather than geographic divides.

The governor’s assertion that “Anambra is Rising” was not another fancy slogan but was substantiated through comprehensive data on economic indicators, infrastructure development, and social metrics. This evidence-based approach to governance reporting stands in stark contrast to the emotional appeals and sentimental narratives that typically dominate political discourse in our polity.

What makes these Diaspora town halls particularly significant is their recognition of the crucial role that Anambra citizens living outside the state play in its development. By actively seeking their input and support, Governor Soludo acknowledges that governance extends beyond Awka to encompass all who have a stake in the state’s progress, no matter where they live and do business in the world.

Also, the enthusiastic reception from attendees suggests that many Anambra indigenes see in Governor Soludo’s administration a departure from business-as-usual politics. Several participants expressed surprise at the level of detail provided about ongoing projects and their implementation timelines, information that empowers citizens to hold their government accountable. And by voluntarily submitting his administration’s record to the scrutiny of some of the state’s most accomplished sons and daughters, Governor Soludo demonstrates confidence in his stewardship and respect for citizens’ intelligence.

The true test of Governor Soludo’s governance model, however, will be when these engaging dialogues translate into a Second Term election of him to continue acceleration of transformation across Anambra State. For now, Governor Soludo’s unique Diaspora town hall engagements confirm that accountability must go beyond being a governance principle and assumes a practical approach that can rebuild trust between citizens and their elected leaders. As Anambra State continues its upward trajectory, the governor’s commitment to keeping stakeholders informed and engaged will be as important as the projects themselves.

The superstitious belief that instant wealth can be conjured by herbalists or ‘native doctors’ has sent an inordinate number of innocent people to their untimely death in Nigeria. But how desperate or gullible must someone be not to understand that if these ‘native doctors’ could create money by performing rituals, they themselves would not be so poor? That precisely is the question being posed by Governor Chukwuma Soludo, who has been waging a war against crooked ‘native doctors’ in Anambra State. It is a battle other stakeholders must join if we are to rid our country of these charlatans who are wreaking serious havoc on young people’s lives.

Soludo concedes that there are traditional healers who use herbs to cure ailments, but his battle is against those who sell charms and rituals as ‘immunities’ against criminal enterprises like armed robbery, kidnapping, cyber fraud etc. He is therefore not fighting genuine traditional medicine practitioners but rather those who prey on the greed or ignorance of our young people. “Go to Indonesia, 23 Ndi Anambra are on death row there for drug related offenses. These native doctors will deceive you that they will prepare a charm that when you carry drugs and enter the airport, the white man’s scanner will go blind. These young people believe them and today, many of our people are languishing in jail across the world,” Soludo said last week, while explaining the motivation for his campaign. “If you see anyone who is professing to have the powers to make people rich, tell us, we will bring him to Awka. If he makes one person a millionaire, we will bring Anambra people and line them up. I will equally present myself because I need money too.”

What Soludo is dealing with is a serious moral crisis that is not peculiar to Anambra State. These ‘native doctors’ are everywhere and many are complicit in the crime of kidnapping that is now rampant across the country. In February, the recently installed Asagba of Asaba, Professor Epiphany Azinge, SAN, banned the activities of ‘Eze-Nwanyi’ (female native doctors/goddesses) within his domain, following reports linking one of them to the murder of a kidnap victim whose body was discovered on the Niger Bridge. “The murder of the Anambra lawmaker points to Asaba, where money was cleared, and where the shrine harbouring the kingpin was located,” said the traditional ruler. “These native doctors seem to be aiding not only internet fraudsters (Yahoo Yahoo boys) but also kidnappers and other criminals. Therefore, we are banning them effective immediately.”

While dark powers exist, the notion that anybody could carry drugs and evade detection at airports or conjure money after killing and harvesting the head/internal organs of another human being or that they could be ‘fortified’ against arrest after committing heinous crimes is beyond ludicrous. Unfortunately, these beliefs are now very prevalent among many of our young people who look for easy answers to life’s questions, especially in the desperate times we live in. That has also created a huge industry for these so-called native doctors who are setting up their shops everywhere and luring young people into lives of crime. In the process, many also lose their lives. For instance, following a stranger-than-fiction tragedy involving a teenager in a community in Esan Southeast local government area of Edo State last week, the Police have arrested a ‘native doctor’ and an accomplish. What was their alleged crime?

To prove the efficacy of a charm ritual they had performed on a 14-year-old boy who sought powers that would make him “invulnerable to bottles”, they struck his head with a bottle. Regrettably, the body of the teenager is now in the morgue. For a 14-year-old boy to be looking for a charm that would make his head ‘bottle-proof’, I expect there is a catch somewhere about illicit gain. Otherwise, what would be the point? Six months ago in the same state, there was a similar incident involving a 19-year-old self-acclaimed native doctor. “One Alex Ezekiel, now deceased, went to the ‘native doctor’ to have (bullet-proof) charms prepared for him. After preparing the charms, the native doctor tried to test the efficacy by shooting the deceased with a gun,” according to a statement by the state police command spokesman, SP Moses Yamu. “Unfortunately, the deceased sustained fatal injuries and was rushed to Ifejola Hospital, Igarra, where he was certified dead by a medical Doctor.”

I am almost certain that the young man was looking for ‘insurance’ against bullets with his eyes on a life of crime, possibly armed robbery or kidnapping. So commonplace is the lure of instant wealth that there is a growing belief that some people can create billionaires from charms or ‘fortify’ criminals against detection. Rooted in ignorance and superstition, this is also an African challenge which then explains why albino and people suffering with a hunched back are perpetually endangered on the continent. In 2017, for instance, bald men in Mozambique were warned by the police that they could be targets of ritual attacks, after five such men were murdered within a week. “The belief is that the head of a bald man contains gold,” Afonso Dias, a police commander in Mozambique’s central Zambezia province, explained at the time. 

This belief has also led to the creation of ‘professionals’ in the field of ‘head hunting’—people who go in search of body parts, particularly the head and sexual organs, for money-making rituals. Since the only way to get such human parts is by committing murder, it is no surprise that ritual killings are now rampant in cities like Lagos, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Benin and Kano. Hardly a week passes without the story of someone being a victim of ritual murder. Indeed, incidence of ritual killings is said to account for many missing people in Nigeria today.

Meanwhile, nobody has been able to prove that the charms by these crafty ‘witch doctors’, can catapult people from penury into instant wealth. At least for now, there is no single person who can be pointed to as having become rich because of human sacrifices, except characters in Nollywood movies. The son of one of the native doctors who is in detention, according to Soludo, is a waiter in a hotel in Nnewi. “If it was that simple, why didn’t he make his son a millionaire?” asked Soludo whose intervention on this matter deserves the support of critical stakeholders because it has brought out the sociological dimensions to serious crimes in Nigeria. “One of them (native doctor who is active on social media) has used things like these to deceive our young people that you can become rich without doing any work, as far as you have done Oke Ite (money rituals)”, he explained. “That is why you see young people who wake up in the morning and retire to a beer parlour drinking, hoping to get rich later in life.”

In his lecture at the 2019 convocation of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), respected Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Godwin Sogolo, FNAL, spoke to the factors that render a social system dysfunctional, using Nigeria as an illustration. While moral disruptions due to ineffective education or damage caused by failure in governance tend to be more gradual and less perceptible, according to Sogolo, “the effects of disruptions caused by severe material needs and cultural invasions are more dramatic and impactful on human character.” Because, as he argued, such “derails the mind of the individual and causes havoc to the collective psyche. The result, in most cases, is the failure to comprehend the purpose of life, leading to moral apathy and unwholesome acts of violence, aggression and criminality, especially among the youths.”

As I have argued in the past on this page, the tragedy of Nigeria is beyond the failure of government; it is that our society is also failing. Although money rituals have been with us for a long time, the current prevalence can be situated within the context of Sogolo’s thesis. If you listen to the lyrics of most of the artistes who now rule the airwaves and are idolized in social media, dishonest living to make money is what most of them now glorify, in addition to peddling obscenities. And many of their young followers are being conditioned to believe that in life, only the end justifies the means.

Last September, the Kogi State Police Command paraded four suspects in connection with killing a 19-year-old female level student at the Federal University Lokoja. All the interactions that led to the tragic drama started on social media where the prime suspect first befriended his victim before they met physically. In his chilling confessional statement, the 20-year-old boy who lured the deceased girl to the bush before killing her for the purpose of ritual money, also said he met the native doctor—to whom he took her eyes, lungs, liver, tongue and other body parts—on TikTok before they then exchanged messages on WhatsApp.

Although the boy hails from Chikun local government of Kaduna State, he admitted coming to Lokoja to ‘hustle’, and then met the girl who fell for his tricks. “I already had it in mind that I want to use her for ritual. I bought codeine and Sprite and mixed it up and gave it to her. When she drank it, I told her, let us go to my house and she agreed. When she felt weak, I took her to an uncompleted building close to my place and strangled her to death…” he told the police. “The native doctor who resides in Ibadan sent a driver and brought calabash and a knife. It is the knife I used to remove parts of her body…” which the driver took back to Ibadan. These body parts were then processed into making a soap that was sent to the boy. Interested readers can consult Mr Google for the gory details and names of culprits in all the cases I have cited.

What should worry us is the growing sociological problem that we must address. In practically all facets of our national life, many of our young people now look for short cuts to success. Such is the moral decay that students (at all levels of our education) want to pass examination not by reading their books but through ‘microchips’, ‘sorting’ and other malpractices for which there are now fancy euphemisms. And for stupendous wealth, they want to make ‘Cheddar’ so they could ‘hammer’ through fraudulent means. Therefore, until we put a lie to this erroneous belief that money can grow out of the body parts of human beings or that there are charms against accountability, the increasing tribe of ‘native doctors’ will continue to deceive young men and women into believing that the surest way to ‘making it’ in life is not by work but rather through ‘money rituals’.  

There is no doubt that we are now in the age of the artificial intelligence, or precisely the Digital Age. Indeed, in scholarship, scholars are already signaling the arrival of a posthuman world within which machines and digital technologies would have taken over most of the intelligences that are usually associated with humans. Whether there will be such a world when machines would challenge human intelligence is still a moot point. What is obvious now is the rate at which artificial intelligences are deployed in the performance of several cognitive functions that are traditionally associated with human capacities. From Siri and Alexa to the driverless bicycle and car, and from social media algorithms to ChatGPT, AI is gradually getting launched in several areas of human endeavor—education, manufacturing, architecture, entertainment, governance, healthcare, sports, and many more. 

It is definitely inevitable that public administration has to confront and engage with the utility of AI in achieving performance and efficiency. The pioneering innovation in both AI and public administration has already been done by Herbert Simon, 1978 Nobel Laureate, especially in his research on organizational knowledge, decision making and human performance. For example, in his theory of administrative behavior, Simon argues that since decision makers and managers are not perfect beings, public administrators cannot be expected to make perfect decisions and choices. On the contrary, this is because they do not have the capacity to think and know everything all at once at any given point. The limitations to their thinking and knowledge imply that they work within this “bounded rationality.” Thus, public managers make administrative choices that are “satisficing”—they are the smart choice not because they are the best ones, but because they are the most satisfactory given the available limitations. 

Within this Herbert Simon’s understanding of administrative behavior and decision-making, we can then begin to imagine how the limitation can be reduced through the deployment of AI. In other words, how does AI intervene in administrative and managerial operations in terms of improving operational efficiency, facilitating informed and evidence-based decision-making, efficient delivery of personalise public services, resource use optimisation and therefore organisational productivity, while promoting efficient, secure, and citizen-centred and modernised systems and work processes? 

Public administration 2.0 is the forerunner especially in the application and deployment of technologies in fast tracking administrative and managerial processes and operations. Through the use of data analytics, and especially user-generated content and interactivity in Web 2.0, public administration and the public sector is better enhanced in terms of citizen-engagement in the administration of government; decision-making is facilitated through data analytics, open data that makes for transparency; and administrative processes that are streamlined for efficiency through the use technologies. With the addition and application of AI, the administration of the public sector, and most significantly of the public service, is provided with a powerful tool for transforming the public sector into a mechanism for effectively and efficiently delivering democratic governance. Let me outline a few of such possibilities.

The first possibility is in the area of managing administrative routines and processes, by articulating heuristic models that reduce costs and man-hour, especially in terms of lowering labour and operational costs that have a significant bearing on performance and national productivity. For example, through AI-based virtual assistants, administrators can adequately manage their calendars, book appointments and send reminders. AI document management system streamlines document scanning, organisation, storage and retrieval processes. Second, AI provides the possibility of stimulating several scenario modelling tools that public sector administrators can utilize in simulating and evaluating various courses of actions and potential outcomes through the deployment of predictive analytics that assist in forecasting future trends, risks and opportunities. This implies therefore that administrators and managers are able to use AI tools to enhance strategic intelligence for problem-solving decision-making that anticipates challenges, gets early warning signals, and proactively devises strategies to mitigate risks or take advantage of emerging trends. 

Third, AI facilitates a near-seamless workplace efficiency, communication and team relations. In using AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants, any public administrator and manager is able to significantly inject administrative sanity into the workplace to resolve complex cooperative matters, instigating effective communication, and evaluate inefficient patterns, processes and practices for critical review and improvement. AI also assists in facilitating seamless interaction among team members through the possibility of remote work dynamics, messaging, video conferencing and file sharing as enabled by such applications as Zoom, Slack and Microsoft Teams, etc.

The fourth fundamental possibility generated by AI in the workplace is the enhancement of performance management. There is the possibility of enhancing data-rooted policy intelligence and decisions through using AI to generate reports and dashboards information around key performance indicators, trends and anomalies. The automation of workflow management goes a long way in harnessing AI-powered project management tools that activate task assignment, resource allocation, the planning and tracking of projects for updates, and the identification of systemic and human-induced impediments and bottlenecks. AI can also enable regulatory governance through the automating of compliance processes and standards monitored in real-time to ensure adherence to regulatory requirements and organisational policies. This proactive approach can significantly reduce the risk of compliance violations, enhance organisational resilience and trustworthiness.

The proactive initiatives of the Tinubu administration—through the Ministry of Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy—are critical and commendable in trying to fast track Nigeria’s functional participation in the global AI ecosystem. We have the development of the national AI strategy and roadmap, from the 2023 Data Protection Act to the signing of the Bletchley Declaration on AI, that situate Nigeria within the capability readiness to deploy the best in global and national AI developments and initiatives that will energize governance and public institutions. What is needed more is the political will and the institutional reform frameworks to push the bounds of the capacity of AI to impact public administration and the public sector in Nigeria. One most immediate point of engagement for AI tools is Nigeria’s anti-corruption campaign. One need not wonder too much why this is so. The civil service all around the world specifically and the public sector at large is still plagued with systemic and structural bottlenecks that incentivise corrupt practices. It is not different in Nigeria. Bureaucratic corruption undermines and undercut budgetary and policy investments in the welfare of Nigerians through the drastic reduction in the quality of infrastructural development. Applying AI tools to the anti-corruption campaign will not only effectively enable the detection of corruption through the sophisticated analysis of financial transactions—suspected financial inflows and anomalies—in government business and the economy. These tools will also enhance government’s capacity to achieve optimal tax collection through automatic detection of tax evaders and tax audit optimisation. 

AI tools and technologies can equally be deployed in achieving security objectives. This will derive from their capacity to monitor crime patterns, predict security threats and enable crime detection using algorithmic protocols and the intelligence these protocols are able to generate to improve rapid responses during emergencies. Artificial intelligence and digital technologies also have significant implications for healthcare delivery through enhanced disease diagnosis and prognosis, treatment planning and public health analysis. The same goes for the administration of service delivery in the education sector by improving personalized learning experiences and improving learning outcomes. In agriculture, AI can be deployed to analyze farming trends and patterns, optimize crop yields and improve food production. 

When Elon Musk took over the running of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the US, he was aware not only that he had a herculean task ahead of him to rationalize and optimize a large federal bureaucracy. He was also aware of the capacity of AI to assist his policy intentions and objectives. When he deployed the AI-powered chatbot, GSAi, and demanded the upgrade of the technological software of entire government workforce, it was a smart move that would cut in half the possible bottlenecks that such a downgrading might experience. This is to enable federal employees efficiently create talking points, summarize text, and write code. This then becomes the basis for expanding the AI tools not only, for example, for achieving efficiency in contract management and procurement, but also for enabling a hitch-free downsizing objective. In other words, the GSAi enhance the capacity of the government to identify and deal with waste and redundancies. Elon Musk insists that “a trillion dollars can be saved just by addressing waste, fraud and abuse.” 

It then becomes very clear what the lessons are that the Nigerian government can learn from this imperative of deploying AI to the urgent necessity of tackling cost of governance and waste management. And again, it requires the most pre-emptive and proactive measures that the political will of the Tinubu administration can muster to bring the public sector up to speed in terms of the benefits of AI. This requires the government taking fundamental steps in institutional and governance reforms. The public service, for example, needs to add AI to the list of its urgent twenty-first century competences, skills and literacies, especially competences in specialized data science, machine learning, AI engineering skills, and data privacy, governance and data security management. This is to the extent that Nigeria needs a critical mass of public officers who understand the technical and administrative significance and operational imperatives of AI in public administration and in the public service. Failure to do this means that despite government’s willingness to sign on to global and regional treaties on AI, not strengthening this willingness by pragmatic institutional reform steps will leave Nigeria behind in the global AI transformation. There is, for example, the need for government to put strong and attractive talent management strategies and incentives in place that will first counteract the perception of government as a terrible employer of labour, retain the talents that are already struggling in government employment, and then draw talents especially from the private sector. 

As usual with almost all organizational and institutional dynamics, AI and the change management strategies required to bring it on board will meet with significant resistance by both the public servants and the citizens. It is the responsibility of government and its reform experts to articulate a change management that enable a speedy and friendly AI adoption. For instance, the government needs massive investment that ensures data availability and the need to build data culture nation-wide. The dynamic will also require the building of strong and intelligent support systems especially in the public service to enhance staff learning and for problem-solving to address critical challenges before they escalate and make a mess of the entire national programme.

Finally, the downside of digital technologies and AI usage is their vulnerability to cybersecurity threats, data breaches and hacking that compromise sensitive official and national information and data. The government therefore needs an adequate security systems and framework—and new offices and positions—that will ensure the appropriate management and protection of AI tools and government data. New roles required will be that of Chief AI Officer, AI Security Office, AI Regulator, and so on, who will be charged with the supervision and monitoring of AI deployment across the MDAs, as well as the implementation of the necessary legislation and guidelines.  

AI is the future of government and public administration. It is one means by which the Tinubu administration can instigate a significant jumpstarting of the Renewed Hope Agenda by dragging AI into its implementation and into the institutional reform blueprint to make it successful.