Nigeria’s Cultural AI Charter: Harnessing Algorithmic Power in Africa’s Digital Age

By Dr. Achi Celestine

For decades, nations like Nigeria have fought a frustrating battle against a ‘single story’—a reductive, often negative, Western-centric narrative. At the recent “Rise Up, Patriots Conference 2.0” in Abuja, a forum admirably organized by the Unveiling & Rebranding Nigeria Initiative (URNI), it became clear that this battleground has fundamentally shifted.

The old enemy was media bias. The new one is algorithmic bias, and it is infinitely more pervasive.

We are no longer just fighting human editors; we are fighting the code that curates our reality. Global platforms are not neutral libraries; they are digital empires run by algorithms trained on data that does not reflect our layered identity. These algorithms, in their search for “engagement,” naturally favor sensationalism or familiar tropes. The result is a digital echo chamber, a systemic failure of discovery that risks creating an algorithmic single story—a polished, auto-generated version of the same old tropes, now harder to challenge because it is masked as objective data.

If we simply plug into these global tools without governance, we will become mere data points in an algorithm we did not build and do not control.

But here is the opportunity. At the Africast conference, I proposed an AI Charter for African Broadcasters to protect our archives. Today, the vision must be bolder. The solution is not to reject the technology, but to master it. We must stop seeing AI as a threat and embrace it as a tireless digital archivist—a tool we can train on our own vast troVes of Nollywood, literature, and music to discover the hidden narratives of our innovation.

This is where technological sovereignty becomes inseparable from narrative sovereignty. We need AI that speaks our languages. Nigeria’s N-ATLAS model, which trains AI on indigenous languages like Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo, is not just a tech project; it is a cultural declaration. An AI that understands a proverb is not just accurate; it is respectful. It can become a cultural bridge, not just translating words but trans-creating the essence of a story from one Nigerian culture to another, building the national empathy we seek.

To govern this powerful future, I am calling for a “National Cultural AI Charter.”

This Charter is not bureaucracy; it is our national playbook. It is a sacred trust for our digital heritage, setting the rules for how our folklore is used as data, how our communities are respected, and how creators are empowered. It ensures AI serves as a custodian, not a colonizer, of our culture.

This technological framework is the essential partner to the vital work being done by Nigeria’s leadership. The efforts of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) in rebranding the nation are crucial. This is perfectly complemented by the strategic steps of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), under the leadership of Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, with their timely introduction of the National Value Charter. The National Value Charter re-calibrates our social compass; the ‘Cultural AI Charter’ I propose is the 21st-century tool that ensures this recalibration is reflected in the digital world, grounding our national identity in both tangible values and technological reality.

We have a choice: become digital vassals in a new algorithmic scramble, or become the architects of our own digital destiny. AI is a powerful new drum in the orchestra of Nigerian storytelling. The Cultural AI Charter is our sheet music. It is time for us to compose.