Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, has urged Nigerian universities to immediately establish Artificial Intelligence (AI) task forces to guide the use of the technology in teaching, learning, research, and administration.
He made the call on Monday at the opening of a three-day national conference hosted by Gombe State University, themed “Generative AI: Transforming Education—Opportunities, Challenges, and Ethical Considerations.”
Speaking at the event, Pantami highlighted AI’s transformative potential, noting that generative AI can produce original text, images, voice, and computer code. He also pointed to global opportunities, saying AI could create 97 million jobs worldwide and contribute $15 trillion to the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2030.
“Those who learn how to use it will replace those who fail to learn it,” Pantami said, stressing that integrating ethical AI into curricula will help students compete on the international stage. He cited AI-powered platforms like Zotero, Connected Papers, Research Rabbit, and Chat Academia as tools for personalized learning and advanced research.
Pantami also warned of the challenges in deploying AI in education, including academic integrity, as students increasingly use AI to generate entire assignments and theses; data privacy concerns regarding sensitive institutional and student information; and algorithmic bias, which may influence fairness and outcomes due to training data limitations.
He encouraged Nigerian universities to follow the example of leading global institutions such as Harvard and MIT by creating AI working groups. Pantami also called for increased investment in AI research, continuous staff training, support for student AI startups, and adoption of platforms to detect plagiarism and AI-generated work to maintain academic standards.
