Introduction

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential to make life better or worse has become the subject of global public discourse centered on the need for a robust regulatory policy framework. There is need for stronger digital voices from Africa to build the continent’s digital foreign policy and diplomacy, and to enable Africa effectively engage with, and navigate the new global political-economy pathways enabled by AI. This would help consolidate a Pan-African momentum in the quest for African democracy and peace.

AI Uptake and Digital Repression

Africa has been rather slow in the uptake of AI. Therefore, the implementation of the African Union (AU) strategic policy framework on AI governance and regulation across countries has been varied for many reasons, from infrastructural challenges to limited financial resources.1 There is also the challenge of limited capacity and other barriers such as poverty, marginalization, digital illiteracy, certain cultural practices, and broader policy issues requiring political interventions, such as formulation and implementation of broadband policies and digital transformation strategies.

These concerns relate to the salience of local ecologies (context), the centrality of users in technological innovation, adoption and adaptation, and the extent to which African states are willing to invest in and regulate technology against the background of perceived threats that technology may present to those in power (ruling regimes). Technology has also introduced challenges in democratic transitions, making some unpopular governments uncomfortable and leading to digital repression. Such circumstances have also presented authoritarian regimes with a new lease of life through the possibility of consolidating AI capabilities for their own interests.

Equally, AI has the capability to disrupt fragile democracies in Africa. Countries like Uganda and Ethiopia are becoming more comprehensive about the regulation of social media, including possible internet shutdowns. Similar threats have been witnessed in Kenya during presidential elections. Of course, threats to shut down the internet impact freedom of expression and has a retrogressive connection to the future application of AI in Africa. AI has also had implications for elections in Africa where cases of external interference abound, eroding public trust in state institutions (especially electoral bodies). In Kenya, for example, the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has lost public trust for consistently presiding over flawed elections.2

Democratizing Tech Adoption and Adaptation

Notably, African governments also lack adequate AI expertise making it critical for the AU to intervene in capacity building considering that Information Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructural issues transcend national boundaries. Broadly speaking, some of these issues are brought about by the technological gaps in the Global South due to developmental deficits in areas such as energy, transport, telecommunication/ICT, health, and education. The latter raises concerns about Media Information Literacy, digital rights, data protection, and security in the context of user adoption and adaptation of technology. Since technology is often regarded as a means of projecting (global) power, the question should be: in whose interest is technology’s affordance in Africa?

The bias that comes with tech design must be called out and addressed to democratize Africa’s AI transition. Technological designs tailored for Europe and North America will not be successfully adopted and developed if Africa is not part and parcel of innovative designs. This is why AI innovations and applications invented, or tailor-made for Africa, present the best promise of success. If this happens, then it would have not only addressed the theoretical concerns of technological innovations as postulated in critical theories of new technology, but also catered for African Union’s and, therefore, Africa’s concerns about Pan-African (contextual and ecological) approaches to AI transition. This is critical because AI drives social media, an increasingly critical tool in Africa’s democratic transition and consolidation.

Social Media, Democratic Transition and Consolidation

However, social media is not the magic bullet for advancing democratic transition and consolidation. It can also be exploited by the State to create repressive laws and policies, evidenced in countries like Cameroon where twitting capabilities have been shut down once for fear of popular protests and insurrection; Eswathini, where King Mswati issued threats directed at the liberal use of Facebook and X. This is similar to the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) temporarily disabled SMS texting in the lead-up to the 2011 elections; and Ethiopia, where making or receiving Skype calls could reportedly lead to prosecution and imprisonment. Social media can also be used to facilitate greater communication for militant extremist groups that advocate violence. For instance, terrorist organizations in Africa like al-Shabaab have launched their own X handle and use tools, such as Facebook, for recruitment, amongst other things.

AI-driven social media technologies complicate genuine concerns in debates regarding democratic transition, consolidation, and peacebuilding in Africa.3 Although views that champion pan-Africa perspectives in these debates are not in short supply, there are prevailing Western views influenced by coloniality of power that seek to see Western-style democracy ‘flourish’ in Africa.4 The latter views are at risk of being sustained through AI-driven social media technologies, evidenced in what is commonly known as “algorithmic bias” – emerging out of exclusive tech designs.

Democracy in Africa is largely based on the principles of liberal democracy anchored on democratic institutionalism, often at the expense of African cultural values and institutional designs. Some view this situation as being partly responsible for the problematic trajectory that democracy in Africa has assumed over the years. Democratic institutionalism implies the strict adherence to the rule of law and constitutionalism, free and fair periodic elections for political transitions, respect for human rights, and civil liberties. However, the manifestations of democratic institutionalisms,5 for example, are demonstrated by institutions that thrive on the projection of coloniality of power per excellence (at the global level, we have world bodies like the UN, WHO, the IMF, and the ICJ and ICC; and at the national level, executive, judiciary, legislature, law enforcement agencies and police, and electoral referees or bodies) influencing the universal epistemic frames of global power configurations with those on the receiving end being those in the Global South. In this unequal power relations, technology is a central tool for the projection of global power and coloniality of knowledge where Africa continues to play catch-up.

Therefore, AI-driven digital systems and social media platforms have the potency of influencing reality and transforming citizens into digital subjects unaware of their digital rights, but ready to exploit these spaces without caution while largely being oblivious of the consequences. Furthermore, electoral technologies adopted by many aspiring democracies in Africa have transformed digital citizens into zombies whose voting rights have been hijacked by AI-powered online political influencers and foreign Integrated Electoral Management Systems which help install autocratic leaders legitimized by a politicised judiciary, leading to the judicialization of elections in some African democracies.6 It is therefore critical that online users be educated about the implications of social media use and abuse.

Social Media Literacy

The dual nature underpinning social media use has already demonstrated how it can assume the role of a double-edged sword in peacebuilding in Africa (See Sokfa’s essay in this issue). For example, even though technology, through social media platforms, has widened citizen participation and the democratic space, it has also led to controversial elections polarised around ethnic cleavages online, spilling into offline violence due to the rise of misinformation and disinformation in the context of ethnic political competition,  calling for social media literacy programs to depolarise ethnic divisions.7  Despite hopes that technology would make elections in Africa transparent, reliable, and verifiable, many countries in Africa, from Kenya to Ghana, Nigeria to Cote D’Ivoire, Namibia to Sierra Leone, have ended up settling their electoral disputes in courts.8

Social media literacy and the power of digital media is evidenced by how Gen Z exploited social media spaces for digital activism, particularly protests against punitive taxes in Kenya. Social media should be directed towards fostering informed discourse essential for amplifying the voices of marginalized groups and empowering young people to participate actively in shaping the policies that affect their lives and future.

The 2024 Gen Z tax bill protests in Kenya demonstrate the significant role language plays in framing activism and influencing public responses. The ability of activists to shape narratives through digital media has proven essential in countering official repression and advocating for economic justice. The Gen Z protests not only reflects the resilience of youth activism in Kenya but also highlights the transformative potential of digital platforms in creating new avenues for political engagement, advocacy, and social change.

In conclusion, the discourses around the Gen Z protests underscore the need for critical media literacy to navigate such frames, and assess how information is presented and impacts society. When social media is given a more comprehensive appraisal beyond its dual nature by introducing the context of user application of technology, social media literacy then becomes useful in underscoring the salience of these AI-driven technological tools in democratic transitions and peacebuilding in Africa.

Endnotes

  1. See Ogenga, F. and Stanley A. 2024. Regulating Artificial Intelligence in Africa: Strategies and Insights from Kenya, Ghana and the Africa Union. Wilson Center, Washington D.C: Africa Up Close
  2. See Ogenga, F. 2021. Social Media, Ethnicity and Peacebuilding in Schirch , L, Social Media, Impacts on Conflict and Democracy. London, New York: Routledge. Pp.131-142.
  3. Ajulu, R. 2022. Post-colonial Kenya: The Rise of an Authoritarian and Predatory State. London, New York: Routledge; Bah, A. 2020. Post Conflict Institutional Designs. London: Zed; Bah, A. and Ogenga, F. 2020. Institutional Designs, Democracy and Peacebuilding in Africa. In Bah, A. Post Conflict Institutional Designs. London: Zed. PP. 197-216; Chitanga, G. 2023. The Role of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the Mediation of the Intrastate Democratization Conflict in Zimbabwe. University of Pretoria: Thesis; Maweu, J. and Mare, A. 2021. Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding in Africa: Conceptual and Empirical Considerations. London, New York: Routledge.
  4. Kobuthi, J. 2023. Africa’s Two Publics and the Coloniality of Power. Retrieved 23rd May 2023 from JOE KOBUTHI – Africa’s Two Publics and the Coloniality of Power | The Elephant.
  5. Nyere, C. 2022. A Decolonial Perspective on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s Invasion of Libya in 2011. University of Pretoria. Thesis; Chitanga, G. 2023. The Role of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the Mediation of the Intrastate Democratization Conflict in Zimbabwe. University of Pretoria: Thesis
  6. Mutua, M. 2023. The Populist Illiberal Authoritarian. Sunday Nation, February 19, 2023.
  7. Ogenga, F. 2021. Kenya: Social Media Literacy, Ethnicity and Peacebuilding. In Lisa, S. 2021. Social Media Impacts on Conflict and Democracy: The Techtonic Shift: London, New York: Sage
  8. See O Kaaba ‘The challenges of adjudicating presidential election disputes in domestic courts in Africa’ (2015) 15 African Human Rights Law Journal 329-354 https://www.ahrlj.up.ac.za/images/ahrlj/2015/Chapter%205_2_2015.pdf
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