Digital information manipulation, AI readiness, and security outcomes in Africa: evidence from Africa's most populous...

The advent of generative AI has reduced costs, scaled up operations, and made it more difficult to identify disinformation and manipulated content, leading to new governance and security challenges in Africa. This paper analyses the nexus among the manipulation of digital information, governments' readiness to adopt AI, digital connectivity, and security outcomes in Africa's five most populous countries, namely Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, for the period from 2023 to 2026. The research attempts to fill a gap in the existing literature by addressing the lack of empirical research on the relationship between digital information manipulation and government AI readiness, and on its consequences for security issues in Africa.

The paper draws on the theoretical frameworks of Social Learning Theory and Routine Activity Theory and uses seven credible datasets, including ACLED, UCDP/PRIO, V-Dem, GSMA, ITU, the Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index, and Afrobarometer, to construct a country-year panel. Correlation analyses were conducted to test three hypotheses regarding the relationship among digital manipulation, digital connectivity, institutional readiness for AI adoption, and conflict fatalities. It utilises a verified multisource panel dataset spanning five countries and operationalises AI readiness as an institutional capability distinct from digital exposure.

Digital manipulation was found to have a weak positive correlation with fatalities (r = 0.23), a moderate negative correlation with digital connectivity (r = -0.56), and a weak negative correlation with institutional readiness to adopt AI (r = -0.42). These findings show that correlations between digital exposure and security consequences may be distorted by underlying conflict contexts.

It can therefore be deduced that although digital manipulation is becoming an emerging security challenge, conflict and other structures are more significant predictors of security outcomes. This study offers an initial cross-national empirical assessment of AI-related security vulnerabilities in Africa and calls for stronger AI governance and longitudinal, event-level research.