Emeka Ajene ✍🏽

The migration story you've heard about Africa is mostly wrong. Contrary to popular perception, less than 1% of Africans leave the continent. Well below the world average of 1.7% for intercontinental migration. The real African migration story isn't about boats to Europe or flights to North America. It's about Burkinabé farmers in Côte d’Ivoire. Somali traders in Kenya. Zimbabwean nurses in South Africa. Africans aren't flooding out of the continent. They're moving within it. In Côte d'Ivoire, for example, migrants represent ~10% of the population — and contribute ~19% of GDP. Africa's underappreciated migration reality is one of the most significant forces quietly reshaping the continent today.

The real sign of AI writing is not superficial stuff like “It’s not X—it’s Y”. It’s the hollowness. Polished writing but relatively mundane ideas. The giveaway is that you’re less impressed when you read it the second time. With good writing, it should be the other way around. I’m not sure this is inherently about AI. It’s more about the fact that people tend to turn to AI when they don’t have much to say. Reading text that has the syntactic smell of AI is mildly annoying, but when I read hollow writing I feel the writer is wasting my time, which is much more frustrating. So don’t do it. People are unlikely to respond to your email or subscribe to your newsletter or whatever you’re trying to get them to do. And they’ll probably remember that you betrayed their trust as a reader.

The real sign of AI writing is not superficial stuff like “It’s not X—it’s Y”. It’s the hollowness. Polished writing but relatively mundane ideas. The giveaway is that you’re less impressed when you read it the second time. With good writing, it should be the other way around. I’m not sure this is inherently about AI. It’s more about the fact that people tend to turn to AI when they don’t have much to say. Reading text that has the syntactic smell of AI is mildly annoying, but when I read hollow writing I feel the writer is wasting my time, which is much more frustrating. So don’t do it. People are unlikely to respond to your email or subscribe to your newsletter or whatever you’re trying to get them to do. And they’ll probably remember that you betrayed their trust as a reader.

In his Feb 24, 2026 Project Syndicate piece "The Perils of Premature Automation" and the related Brookings viewpoint (Feb 2026 Foresight Africa chapter), Gabon’s Minister Mark-Alexandre Doumba argues developing countries (esp. Africa) should sequence AI adoption deliberately—not rush it—to avoid "premature automation." Core thesis: Greatest risk isn’t missing the AI revolution but joining too early, before building foundations. Embedding frontier AI in outdated, paper-based systems (e.g., Gabon hospital handwritten registers) risks displacing middle-skill jobs (call centers in Kenya/Rwanda, logistics in SA, finance in Nigeria) without new growth engines, deepening unemployment (12M new jobseekers/yr vs 3M formal jobs), dependency (export raw data, import algorithms), and inequality—echoing failed premature industrialization like Ghana 1950s-60s or Rodrik’s premature deindustrialization. Stats: Africa 38% internet penetration (vs global 68%), <1% global data centers/GPUs/AI research. Solution: Digitize first (data sovereignty, IDs, payments like Gabon’s GIMACPAY/Kenya M-Pesa), invest digital infra (local centers), pilot in sandboxes, leverage late-mover edge for governance (e.g., SA AI Institute, Brazil Pix). Quote: “The greatest risk is not missing the AI revolution, but joining it too early.” AI is transformative if synchronized with development goals—not a race.