Africa’s AI sovereignty: Decolonising tech governance to counter cyber-exploitation of financial lifelines
Original framing: “Why Africa needs its own AI off switch” — Rest of World
African indigenous knowledge systems like the Dogon’s *Sigui* (cyclical renewal rituals) or the San’s *!Kheisi* (oral legal codes) demonstrate millennia-old practices of algorithmic governance—where 'rules' are fluid yet collectively enforced. These systems could inform 'AI off switch' designs by embedding *ubuntu* principles (e.g., no system operates without community consent) and *ubuntu*-compatible fail-safes, such as the Igbo *Omu* (consensus-based arbitration) for resolving AI-mediated conflicts. The omission of these frameworks reduces 'AI sovereignty' to a technical fix, ignoring how indigenous data ethics (e.g., the Zulu *Ubuntu Data Protocol*) already address issues like algorithmic bias and extractive surveillance. For example, the Maasai *Enkang* (boma) model of nested governance could structure multi-layered AI oversight, from village-level to national scales.