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 personalised 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 optimise 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, summarise 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 specialised 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 organisational 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.
Concluded.
Prof. Olaopa is Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission.
