Religious Leaders Warn Against Unchecked AI Adoption in Nigeria

ABUJA — Some of Nigeria’s most influential religious leaders are asking the government to include faith-based perspectives in the development of national policies on artificial intelligence. They warn that unchecked AI adoption could undermine Nigerian cultural, moral, and spiritual values.

The call came this week at a meeting in Abuja organised by the News Agency of Nigeria. Participants included clerics from Christian and Muslim communities, as well as academics and policy advocates.

A New Kind of Concern

The concerns raised were unlike typical tech policy debates. Religious leaders focused not on regulation for its own sake, but on whether AI systems being developed overseas would be appropriate for Nigerian society.

“These systems are designed in foreign countries with foreign values,” said one cleric at the meeting. “When we import them without thinking, we also import the values baked into them.”

He gave examples of AI tools that had generated content considered offensive under Nigerian religious norms. He said the government must create policies that allow Nigerians to audit and adapt AI tools before wide deployment.

What Experts Say

Technology policy analysts partly agree with the clerics’ concerns. They point out that large language models and AI content tools are often trained on predominantly Western data, which can produce outputs that reflect Western cultural norms.

At the same time, some experts caution against using cultural concerns to block AI adoption in ways that leave Nigeria behind economically.

Government Position

Nigeria’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy has committed to releasing a National AI Policy later this year. Officials say the policy will include a framework for ethics review and local adaptation of AI systems.

Whether religious leaders will have a formal seat at that table remains to be seen.