Integrating Islamic Ethical Principles into Nigeria’s AI Surveillance Policy

In the era of hyper-digitalization, AI has exponentially expanded the size and scope of state surveillance globally, pushing fundamental ethical questions of privacy, discrimination, and human dignity to the forefront. In Nigeria, the rapid development of digital identity systems and compulsory SIM-to-ID registrations has established a significant real-time surveillance potential, yet AI-specific legal protections remain underdeveloped. Though the Nigerian Constitution and Nigerian Data Protection Act (NDPA) 2023 provide general rights to privacy, there is little incorporation of local religious and cultural frameworks in AI regulation. This article discusses how fundamental Islamic ethical principles, derived from maqāṣid al-sharīʿah, i.e., protection of honor (ḥifẓ al-ʿird), life (ḥifẓ al-nafs), intellect (ḥifẓ al-ʿaql), and public interest (maṣlaḥah), can be used to enhance Nigeria's AI surveillance law. Using doctrinal legal comparison, the research contrasts and compares classical Islamic sources and Nigerian statutory and constitutional law, the NDPA, and applicable digital identity law. The research demonstrates that while elements of Nigerian law are consistent with Islamic precepts of dignity and well-being, there remain lacunae under which bulk data harvesting, algorithmic profiling, and enforcement deficit erode privacy and autonomy. The paper concludes by recommending concrete measures to incorporate Islamic ethical imperatives in Nigeria's AI policy, including obligatory ethical audits, proportionality, and religion-based public control, in a bid to ensure that AI surveillance is solely for legitimate public interests and not at the cost of human dignity.