Emmanuel Adejo, MultiChoice Talent Factory alumnus and professional screenwriter, has drawn a firm line around artificial intelligence’s role in African storytelling, arguing that while AI can streamline technical production processes, it fundamentally cannot replicate authentic human emotional expression.
Speaking at NECLive 2025, Emmanuel Adejo addressed widespread anxiety about AI’s impact on creative industries. “There’s always the fear that AI is going to replace actual storytelling. What I always say is AI hasn’t come to replace storytelling; it’s here to make the process simpler and easier,” he stated.
Adejo identified the critical limitation preventing AI from supplanting human creators. “No matter how close AI tries to be like the human voice, it cannot accurately represent or express human feeling. That is what our films and stories are tailored toward—telling the original human experience,” he explained.
The screenwriter advocated strategic AI deployment in appropriate contexts. “There are AI softwares that can help with pre-production and things requiring technical skills. But in the actual recreation and writing of story, it’s important we keep it very human so we can replicate human experience accurately,” he stated, citing tools like Celtx for scheduling as legitimate applications.
Emmanuel Adejo warned against misunderstanding AI’s purpose. “Creatives should not fall into the trick of thinking AI has come to replace the actual process of thinking, experiencing, and expressing. It’s just to help and assist making actualization of work easier,” he declared, concluding definitively: “AI cannot tell human stories better than humans.”
Addressing Nigerian storytelling gaps, Adejo emphasised universal relatability as the pathway to international resonance. “One of the most important things we’re taught in film school is story is the most important thing. How do you make story most important? Tell a story that is universal. How do you tell a universal story? Tell a story very relatable to Nigerian audience,” he explained.
He identified insufficient development time as a persistent problem. “One of the gaps in Nigerian storytelling is we do not have enough time crafting stories. The writing, writer room, and ideation process doesn’t take enough time to develop stories properly,” he stated, praising MultiChoice’s writer room initiatives while suggesting improvement opportunities.
Adejo advocated for genre-specific residencies to address content diversity gaps, particularly in Afrofuturism and Afro-spiritualism. He noted Showmax’s recent expansion into magical realism and fantasy programming with shows like “Aṣẹ” and “Between Worlds.”
His most ambitious proposal: cross-market residencies bringing MultiChoice Talent Factory graduates from Nigeria, Botswana, and South Africa together for collaborative productions. “Writers from different countries sit down and talk about how we can collaborate. You would see elevated storytelling. We borrow elements from their reality, add to Nigerian reality, and make Nigerian storytelling experience newer,” he concluded.
