African universities are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) tools at pace but lack the governance structures to protect their data, values, or academic independence, a senior scholar has warned.

Professor Ojo Emmanuel Ademola, identified as the first African Professor of Cybersecurity and Information Technology Management, argues in a published essay that institutions across the continent are installing foreign AI systems, among them learning management platforms, proctoring tools, and analytics dashboards, without the frameworks needed to control how they operate or whose interests they serve.

“The future will belong to those who build, not merely those who buy,” he writes.

Ademola identifies what he calls a governance gap with four distinct consequences: student data stored on servers outside African jurisdictions; automated decision-making that institutions cannot interrogate; long term dependency on external vendors whose commercial priorities may not align with African education goals; and AI systems trained on datasets that largely exclude African languages, cultures, and lived experiences.

That last point carries weight beyond the classroom. A large majority of widely used AI systems draw on training data that is predominantly English language and Western in orientation, leaving African linguistic communities underrepresented in the tools that now grade assignments, predict student performance, and flag academic misconduct on campuses across the continent.

The solution Ademola proposes is not a retreat from AI but a structural shift in how African universities relate to it. Institutions must evolve from passive consumers of imported technology into builders of indigenous AI ecosystems, establishing local data centres, investing in AI research laboratories, and rewriting curricula to include machine learning, data science, AI ethics, and digital governance.

He grounds his ethical framework in African philosophical traditions. Ubuntu and Omoluabi, which centre community, dignity, and moral character, offer, he argues, a more appropriate foundation for governing AI than the values driven by profit embedded in many global platforms. Within this framework, AI governance in African universities should advance equity, require transparent and accountable algorithms, and reflect the continent’s linguistic and cultural diversity.

Ademola acknowledges the scale of what he is asking. No single university, he writes, can build a complete AI ecosystem on its own. Continental collaboration through the African Union (AU), regional blocs, and shared university networks is essential to creating the infrastructure and policy architecture needed for African institutions to govern technology on their own terms.

The AU’s Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa, which runs to 2030, has laid some groundwork for coordinated digital policy across the continent. The essay presses the case that higher education must now translate that continental ambition into specific institutional action.

His roadmap calls on universities to establish governance frameworks aligned with national laws and AU guidelines, invest in local hosting and secure data infrastructure, support indigenous AI research and university and industry partnerships, and train faculty, administrators, and students in AI literacy and digital governance.