“This is not the Africa we want; we need to move faster. And the 4th industrial revolution allows us to. We must redesign ourselves for the challenge and opportunity Africa faces.” This was the sentiment, presented by President Paul Kagame, that emerged from the Transform Africa Summit 2023 (“TAS2023”) held in Zimbabwe. He was joined by African leaders from across the continent, including host President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi, His Majesty King Mswati III of the Kingdom of Eswatini, and Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia.
The emphasis of this speech and the commitments made by African leaders are on investing in and developing emerging technologies, such as AI, in the African context. And importantly, our leaders want us to move faster. Embrace the 4th industrial revolution and make it “work for us.”
It is possible that, when our leaders emphasise investing in African-led AI and other emerging technologies, they mean it genuinely. The prospect of tech being designed, developed, and rolled out in the African context is attractive. No single group of people know Africa and all its intricacies better than Africans. Therefore, the idea of tech built to suit our geographical, demographic and resource-scarce landscape makes sense.
However, historical and current evidence suggests that this “African-led” investment sentiment in emerging technology is disingenuous and potentially deliberately misleading. No matter how much our state leaders deny it, they have historically always partnered with big corporates and their extractive agendas. The evidence from the last three years since the TAC2023 suggests that once again, on the African continent, profit-over-people will be the prevailing policy.
This policy, of course, is intrinsically tied to colonialism on the continent. The Democratic Republic of Congo and its people were enslaved and murdered by the Kingdom of Belgium for copper, rubber, cobalt and uranium. All in the name of profit for the automotive, battery, military and mining industries. South Africa and its black, Indian and coloured communities were oppressed and enslaved by the United Kingdom of Britain, and later the apartheid government for gold, diamonds and coal. Such that the banking, jewellery, energy and export/import industries could profit and boom. And Nigeria, a final example among hundreds, where the UK similarly oppressed and enslaved Nigerians to extract palm oil, groundnuts and crude oil. Once again, for the benefit of food, cosmetics, energy and petrochemical industries.
The above is just a slice of the horrific and consequential story that is Africa’s colonial and capitalist-driven past. For many, when African states began to assert their independence and recapture their land, there was genuine hope that this would mean our resources and land would be redistributed and prioritised for Africans. Our transformative post-colonial legal systems suggest that this is the case. The South African Constitution is built on the principles of redress, land reform, economic transformation and equality and human dignity. The Constitution of Nigeria emphasises economic sovereignty and national and indigenous control over state resources for the public’s benefit. And the DRC, in 2006, adopted its Constitution, which, in article 9, declares emphatically, “permanent sovereignty over the [..] soil, subsoil, water resources and woods, air space, rivers, lakes and maritime space as well as [..] territorial sea and the continental shelf.”
However, history shows us that power and capital only care about legal systems insofar as they can profit from the loopholes found within them. The Nigerian government still facilitates oil trade with major Western oil companies; South Africa remains a playground for large multinational mining companies; and the DRC still supplies a large majority of the global cobalt supply to electrical and energy companies.
Emerging technology companies are predominantly housed in Europe or the United States of America. And despite the sentiments coming out of TAS2023, it is these companies that African leaders are inviting to our countries, rather than investing in our own infrastructure and capacity. Africa, according to our leaders, “need to move faster with a sense of urgency” when it comes to emerging technology. However, as the above history shows, this urgency is not because they are worried that Africans will fall behind; it is more likely that our leaders are worried about their profit share in the already booming tech world that originates in the West.
Africans seldom saw the dividends from oil, minerals, and other industries; therefore, why should we think any differently about the tech revolution? The evidence of this profit-over-people policy, now in tech, is already there!
African data for Africans?
Cambridge Analytica (‘CA’). When we say the name of this political consultant and data analytics firm, the first thing that probably pops into your mind is the election of Donald Trump in the 2016 US elections and the passing of the BREXIT referendum in the UK.
However, what is less well known is that CA also played a crucial role in the attempted re-election of then-president of Nigeria, Goodluck Johanthan in 2015, and the successful re-election of President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, in 2017.
CA is notorious for harvesting data from hundreds of thousands of Facebook users to develop personality profiles that can be used for political campaigning. CA reportedly assisted Johanthan by promoting a video that accused his political challenger, Muhammadu Buhari, of being a supporter of Boko Haram and someone who wants to end women’s rights. They did this by using the personality profile they developed to specifically promote this video in pro-Buhari strongholds, hoping it would erode their support for him.
In 2017, CA’s political campaign tools had become refined and super-powered, such that they were credited by CA and prominent world leaders for the re-election of Kenyatta in the 2017 Kenyan elections. Specifically, CA is often credited for promoting an anti-Raila Odinga video (Kenyatta’s opponent) to the Kenyan public. The video painted an apocalyptic scene, claiming that Kenya would essentially be doomed if Odinga were elected President.
The CA tale gave many states, particularly in the West, a massive scare about the use of private data in election contexts. Europe has famously tightened its regulatory frameworks; however, many African states have done very little to date, leaving the public severely vulnerable to election-fixing scandals in the future.
This is a democratic catastrophe.
Artificial Intelligence for who?
AI AI AI AI AI. When we speak of the emerging tech boom today, most, if not all, are referring to Artificial Intelligence. However, do most people understand what is required to keep AI functional?
Well, it’s not a secret. I asked ChatGPT, and it gave me a list of ten; these are the most interesting in relation to the conversation above:
“1. Massive Computing Infrastructure” read as large portions of land for hyperscale data centres
“2. Electricity & Energy”, it qualified itself: “AI systems consume enormous amounts of electricity,” and necessary for this to work is an equally enormous source of water.
“3. Critical Minerals & Global Mining. The hardware depends heavily on minerals extracted globally — many from Africa.”
“6. Human labour” where have we heard that before…
“7. Training data” read as vast quantities of information, including innocuous text, books, articles, but also personal and private data.
Even AI itself understands that it does not just exist in a liminal space. In fact it is its own whistleblower with respect to the AI industry being the next frontier in the hyper-capitalisation of Africa and the extraction of its resources. An industry which the African public will benefit not from.
In South Africa, there are currently 56 data centres in operation, which reportedly used 17.94 billion litres of water in 2025 to cool their servers. New AI data centres are being proposed for development in Cape Town, Johannesburg and eThekwini. These will be categorised as hyperscale data centres because for example: the Korea South Power Consortium-owned centre in eThekwini will require, on its own, 10.2 billion litres of water annually to keep it functioning. A massive portion of land and drain of power, an enormous waste of water, and the kind of environmental degradation that the mining industry could only dream of.
We are seeing similar developments in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and more.
People-over-profit
Whether it’s Cambridge Analytica, OpenAI, Palantir or Anglo American, De Beers, Glencore, the policy remains the same: Profit-over-people; Profit-over-Africans.
They say colonialism is over however it sure feels like Africa is still living in the same old story of extractivism, oppression, and domination
African civil society organisations and the general public, therefore, need to do what they do best. Resist. Mobilise. Demand change.
Africa MUST emphasise that our law and policy will prioritise human dignity over profit, with respect to emerging tech.
Africa MUST promulgate data sovereignty into our political systems.
Africa MUST deny tech companies access to our land and resources.
Our legal systems already recognise these principles as a necessity. However, it is now about ensuring that our leader have the political will to hold those, who continue to promote a seemingly never-ending extractive project, accountable.
This blog post was written for AIRA by Kimal Harvey, Attorney at the Legal Resources Centre.
