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Preparing for Digital Disruptions During Africa’s Year of Elections
By ‘Gbenga Sesan
This year, 23 African countries will hold elections – ranging from local to parliamentary and presidential. Considering that election seasons are known to come with many digital rights violations, including internet shutdowns, digital platform clampdowns, privacy breaches and other digital restrictions, it is essential to pay attention, anticipate likely infringements and work to ensure the respect of citizen rights in the digital sphere, alongside others.
Over the last two years, the internet has been shut down by the governments of the Republic of the Congo, Niger, Uganda and Zambia during election periods. Of the five African countries that shut down the internet in 2022, one of them (Somalia) held elections the same year, while three (Sierra Leone, Sudan and Zimbabwe) have elections planned for 2023. Burkina Faso’s shutdown may not be directly linked to elections, but it is connected to the country’s January 2022 coup d’état.
In 2023, presidential elections will hold in Gabon, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Sudan and Zimbabwe. All of them, except Madagascar, have shut down the internet or restricted the use of digital platforms. Apart from Libya, all the other countries that have elections in 2023 and have disrupted access to the internet or digital platforms before did so within the last three years. Will they do so again, under the guise of preventing the spread of misinformation, countering dangerous speech, possible violence or any other excuse used in the past, as they approach elections in 2023?
Gabon has had the same president since October 2009. After Omar Bongo – who had been the country’s president for 42 years – died in June 2009, his son, Ali Bongo Ondimba, Minister of Defense at the time, won the elections conducted four months later. The January 2019 internet shutdown in Gabon happened during a military coup attempt, and the government refused to respond to civil society enquiry on the reason for the shutdown.
Liberia cut off access to its most popular social media platform during protests in June 2019. Libya’s disputed elections have been postponed three times in the past four years. Still, the country is no stranger to digital rights violations during public interest events, beginning with its February 2011 shutdown of internet and international phone services in response to protests.
In June 2021, Nigeria announced a nationwide shutdown of access to a social media platform considered one of the country’s last-standing civic spaces. Even though an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice ruling declared the government’s decision to suspend Twitter “unlawful and inconsistent with the country’s international obligations” and “ ordered Nigeria to ensure the unlawful suspension would not reoccur and to take necessary steps to amend its laws to be in conformity with the rights and freedoms enshrined in the ACHPR and ICCPR”, the government has refused to confirm that such violations will not reoccur.
In August 2022, Paradigm Initiative (PIN), a Pan African organization that advocates for digital rights and inclusion, and other digital rights stakeholders condemned an internet shutdown that followed during citizen protests in Sierra Leone. Even for a country where only 6.5% of the population has access to the Internet, South Sudan shut down the internet ahead of planned protests in August 2021. Even though a Sudan court ordered the end of the internet shutdown that followed protests against a military coup in October 2021, it did not stop the country from repeating the violation again in June 2022, ahead of planned protests. Speaking on the June 2022 shutdown, the Sudanese Engineers Syndicate said, “…cutting off internet and communication services in Sudan has become a pattern and led to many violations.
In January 2019, Zimbabwe shut down the internet in response to citizens’ protests. At the end of the three-day closure ordered by the government, it asked telecommunications companies to implement shutdowns a second time in the same week. A judge ruled that the shutdown was illegal but that did not stop another shutdown at the end of July 2020.
For countries that have developed the habit of disrupting digital access during significant democratic events, it appears that judicial pronouncements, civil society condemnation or citizen dissent are never enough to prevent future violations. However, it is important to prepare for the likelihood of such violations of digital rights and challenge them to prevent impunity.
As all twenty-three African countries go to the polls, the task of protecting citizen rights – including preventing, condemning and/or seeking redress – does not rest on civil society organisations and activists alone. We must all work to ensure that a continent that lost $261 million to internet shutdowns in 2022 and desperately needs to maximise digital opportunities for its citizens stays off the path of digital clampdowns that do not serve anyone’s interest.
We must support the work of digital rights actors who continue to document evidence of digital rights infractions, provide information on how to stay safe and help citizens seek redress when violations happen. Through the annual Londa report, PIN has documented digital rights violations and significant policy updates across African countries since 2016. Each year since 2019, Londa, which included 22 independent country reports in 2021, forms the basis of short films produced by PIN to condense the message into less than thirty minutes of infotainment.
The short film based on the 2021 report, Finding Diana , is available on PIN’s YouTube page, as well as the 2020 film, Focus, and 2019 film, Training Day. Building on information from the reports and short films that expose violations and deliberate bad practices, PIN developed a digital rights toolkit, Ayeta, to educate digital rights actors and other citizens on how to protect themselves in digital spaces. If violations happen despite citizen action to protect themselves, the Ripoti platform provides an opportunity to report incidents and seek legal redress.
During elections, PIN provides country-specific information on how to stay online if digital clampdowns happen. The first edition of the Digital Rights and Elections in Africa Meetings (DREAM) was held in Abuja on February 7, 2023, ahead of Nigeria’s February 25 and March 11 general elections. Similar editions are planned to hold ahead of elections in other countries. We know that election seasons are fraught with violations and so we must prepare for digital disruptions.
However, as it happened in 2020 in Ghana and 2022 in Kenya, it is possible that no digital disruptions will be reported in most countries. Civil society organisations working in both countries will tell you that it requires a lot of work to avoid disruptions. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, in this case, because there are many competing interests during elections, and even in countries with no record of digital rights violations, some of those interests are served by clampdowns on the opposition and dissenting voices.
The best time to prepare for likely violations is before they happen, and it is your duty and mine to make that preparation happen across the African countries that will hold elections in 2023.
The writer is the Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative and a member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Leadership Panel.
Afrobeat sensation and Nigerian music star, Rema, will this week share his inspiring story on CNN International’s African Voices Changemakers, sponsored by Globacom.
Born Divine Ikubor, the 24-year-old Edo-born singer-songwriter, discovered his passion for music in church and school. His big break came after posting a viral freestyle on Instagram, catching D’Prince’s attention. This led to a record deal with Jonzing World, a subsidiary of Mavin Records, owned by Don Jazzy.
Rema’s global ascension gained momentum in 2022 with the release of his hit single “Calm Down”. The song’s massive success led to a collaboration with American pop sensation Selena Gomez, propelling it to greater heights. Notably ‘Calm Down” reached number three on the prestigious Billboard Hot 100 chart, number one on Billboard Afrobeats Songs chart, where it held the top spot for a record- breaking 58 weeks.
His star status was crowned on November 7, 2022, when he received an award for achieving 1 billion streams worldwide during his London concert, in addition to performing at the Ballon d’Or ceremony held at the Theatre du Châtelet in Paris, France on October 30, 2023.
The interesting episode of African Voices awaits viewers on CNN on Saturday at 8.30 a.m., with repeats at noon the same day. More repeats come up on Sunday at 4.30 a.m., 7.00 p.m. and on Monday at 4.00 a.m.
By Linda Saunders, Director Solutions Engineering, Africa Salesforce
AI is advancing rapidly, capturing the attention of CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs with its proven ability to boost productivity, enhance employee performance, and improve customer relationships.
We are entering the third wave of AI where autonomous AI agents will go beyond simply generating and analysing content, as chatbots and copilots did in the first and second waves and will be able to reason and autonomously take action for human colleagues. Indeed, they’ll work 24/7 to tackle individual, low-value, time-consuming tasks or collaborate with other agents to get larger, more complex jobs and projects done.
In sales, for example, they’ll engage with prospects, answer questions, manage objections, and schedule meetings based on CRM and external data, allowing sellers to focus on building deeper customer relationships. With dynamic, conversational self-service, they can be configured to answer customer questions using companies’ existing knowledge base so they can automatically resolve account access. They can also triage registration and payment issues, directing customers to the appropriate resources.
Put simply, the future of AI is agents, and it’s here. Companies need to get ready to implement fast as these autonomous agents will become central to organizations’ customer engagement and experience strategies.
Working together, these customisable agents can autonomously take action on tasks and free up workers to focus on the jobs only they can do.
At Dreamforce, Salesforce unveiled Agentforce – a groundbreaking suite of customizable, autonomous agents and tools, makes it easy for customers to build their own ‘agent force’ — a revolutionary step forward in enterprise AI that will boost productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction across service, sales, marketing, commerce, and more. Agentforce is how humans with AI drive customer success together and it’s been designed so that any organisation can build, customise, and deploy their own agents quickly and easily, with low-code tools.]
Complementing skills, and ensuring accountability
The leap from generative to agentic AI will transform how humans work.
Despite business eagerness to experiment with and deploy AI, many still worry about how to do so safely, how to keep data under their control, and make sure they can trust the AI’s output.
There is considerable concern about AI displacing workers or becoming too powerful and working at odds with humans.
Agents require guardrails, and they have to be monitored to make sure that they’re doing what they’re supposed to.
Success requires not just finding the AI models or building AI actions that best suit a company’s needs but having the infrastructure and data security to do so responsibly.
Audit trails are necessary to hold autonomous AI agents accountable, just as employers might establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to keep human workers marching toward their expected goals.
It’s important to think about the role of agents at work as a partnership between people and AI. Complementing skills and intelligence will bring better business outcomes.
While agents can orchestrate complex actions on behalf of the user, they require those skills to be configured and need a degree of hand-holding to perform at their best.
Businesses need to take their employees on the AI journey. They will require training to work with autonomous AI agents because they need context and onboarding much like new employees.
Setting direction, clear goals, and giving feedback ultimately helps AI train itself better.
The future of work is a hybrid workforce
Together, agents with humans will drive customer success. This is what AI is meant to be.
Every company has more jobs to be done than the resources available to do them. As a result, many jobs go unaddressed or uncompleted.
An estimated 41% of employee time is spent on repetitive, low-impact work, and 65% of desk workers believe generative AI will allow them to be more strategic, according to the Salesforce Trends in AI Report.
However, it’s essential for AI agents to understand and execute their expansive capabilities. It’s equally, if not more, important for them to recognize their limitations and understand when human intervention is necessary.
The future of work is a hybrid workforce composed of humans with agents, enabling companies to compete in an ever-changing world. With AI, humans can focus on what’s really important: human relationships.
Celebrating excellence in leadership: Mojisola Ologe, a recognized risk management professional, has won The Peak Performer FEST 2024 Admirable Woman in Leadership Award.
Mojisola Ologe (middle) receiving the The Peak Performer FEST 2024 Admirable Woman in Leadership Award.
The event, held at the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos, brought together women leaders from various industries as part of TPP FEST 2024. With the theme, “Enhancing Women Leadership with the Magic of Emotional Intelligence,” it highlighted essential behavioral insights and strategies for women to excel in their careers and business ventures, while also recognizing outstanding women in society and promoting leadership skills, global connections, and well-being.
With over 20 years of experience in technology, risk management, and cybersecurity, Mojisola Ologe has been at the forefront of safeguarding critical infrastructure within the financial and technology sectors.
Her comprehensive expertise in audit, regulatory compliance, and innovative risk management strategies has strengthened organizational resilience and driven operational excellence, establishing her as a trusted authority in the field.
Mojisola has successfully led transformative cybersecurity initiatives that align with global standards such as ISO 27001, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and PCI DSS. Her strategic oversight has driven the implementation of advanced security controls, threat assessment protocols, and incident response frameworks, significantly enhancing organizational resilience against emerging cyber threats.
Beyond her professional expertise, Mrs. Ologe is a passionate advocate for empowering and mentoring women in cybersecurity, a field traditionally dominated by men. Her efforts have contributed to shaping a more inclusive technology landscape in Nigeria.
As a dynamic leader, Mojisola is recognized for her ability to foster collaboration and drive cross-functional teams towards shared objectives. A trailblazer in the field, she continuously pushes the boundaries of innovation and security in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
Presenting the Admirable Women in Leadership Award to Mojisola, Dr. Abiola Salami, publisher, The Peak Performer, said, “This is in acknowledgement of your excellent leadership by those you have led in the year under review 2023/2024.
“We hope this will inspire you to deliver a higher level of excellence in future”.
In her response, Mojisola said it was a very auspicious moment for her “as we all have gathered to celebrate myself and others who have excelled in different fields.
“It’s a great honour for me to be given accolades and award; I am truly obliged for this great honour and recognition given by The Peak Performer team”.
She said she is more energised and charged up to take up new and challenging projects which would work in the benefit of her organisation and the environment.
Other prominent award recipients included Lady Maiden Alex-Ibru, Chairman, Publisher, and CEO of Guardian Newspapers; Dr. Mosun Belo-Olusoga, a leading figure in Nigeria’s financial services sector; Bodam Taiwo, Head of Portfolio, Bond and Connect at Pernod Ricard; Chichi Emenike, Head of Gas Ventures at Neconde Energy Limited; Rachel Adeshina, Country Head of Technology and Services at FBN Bank Ghana; and Mabel Adeteye, Head of Brands and Communication at Wema Bank. Each of these women was recognized for their exceptional achievements and impact within their respective fields.
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