The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas has disclosed that the National Assembly was planning to come up with a law that would provide a framework for the regulation and application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Nigeria.
Abbas, who was represented by the House Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda, made the appeal on Monday at the Matriculation Ceremony of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) University of Benin (UNIBEN) Post Graduate Programmes and HND Programme, held in Abuja.
Accordingly, he challenged the management of the National Institute For Legislative And Democratic Studies, to explore opportunities in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to optimize human capital development.
Abbas specifically tasked authorities of the National Assembly training arm to design a curriculum in line with the practice in other countries.
He said that many developed countries had advanced their educational systems and continued to explore opportunities in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to optimize human capital development.
He said, “In order to key into this emerging development, the 10th National Assembly will strive to provide a legal framework for regulating the adoption of AI in our country.
This is in order to ensure an optimal mix of labour-capital ratio in our nation’s development process.
“In this direction, NILDS is expected to look into the possibilities of providing research-based intellectual support to facilitate the actualization of this very important modern process. While the 10th National Assembly will continue to support NILDS, your role as students, therefore, is simple but important”.
He therefore, called on the students of the institute to endeavour to attend their lectures regularly, do their assignments promptly, and obey all the rules and regulations that are contained in the Student’s Handbook.
Abbas emphasised the role of education in nation-building and national development, saying, “In my years as a legislator, I have also seen how the capacity-building and knowledge-deepening of the support system around legislators can help them to enhance legislative processes and outcomes”.
The Director General of NILDS, Prof Abubakar Sulaiman, said this year’s matriculation ceremony was unique in many ways, noting that it presented a higher number of enrolments compared to last year.
He said that a total number of 180 students had been admitted into the institute’s various postgraduate programmes for the current academic session, compared to the 107 for last year.
