Veritas Sets record as the first University in the World to sign Humanitas AI Compact

MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS TAKES INSTITUTIONAL FORM AS REV. FR. PROF. ICHOKU LEADS SIGNING OF HUMANITAS AI COMPACT AT VERITAS UNIVERSITY

Veritas University Abuja, the Catholic University of Nigeria, has hosted the first physical signing of the Humanitas AI Compact, opening a global institutional response from Africa to the call of Magnifica Humanitas that artificial intelligence must serve humanity.

The signing took place on Thursday, 25 June 2026 - the one month anniversary of the release of Magnifica Humanitas - in the Senate Chamber of Veritas University Abuja, before the 154th Senate of the University assembled.

The Vice-Chancellor, Rev. Fr. Prof. Hyacinth Ichoku, signed the Compact on behalf of Veritas University after briefly suspending the ordinary business of Senate for what he described as a solemn act of institutional witness.

In his remarks, Rev. Fr. Prof. Ichoku said the Compact exists because of Magnifica Humanitas, through which Pope Leo XIV specifically called universities and institutions of learning by name to take up their responsibility in the age of artificial intelligence.

“This Compact is our institutional response to that call, beginning from Africa, and extending globally to all institutions entrusted with the formation, protection, education, healing, governance, and advancement of the human person,” the Vice-Chancellor said.

He stated that the central conviction of the Compact is simple and solemn: artificial intelligence must serve humanity.

The Compact is directed first toward the poor, the sick, women and girls, young people, workers, communities affected by conflict, and all those vulnerable to exclusion, sickness, displacement, manipulation and invisibility.

The physical signing was witnessed and joined by institutions and leaders from education, public policy, health, technology, human development and African scholarship.

Prof. Emeka Aniagolu, Chairman, Steering Committee of Humanitas AI, and a professor of African and African-American history and politics at Ohio Wesleyan University and Ohio State University for over 36 years, described the ceremony as the first physical witness to a wider institutional movement.

“This is not an ordinary signing,” Prof. Aniagolu said. “It is the first physical witness to an institutional commitment: that artificial intelligence must serve humanity.”

He said the first physical signing opens the way for a wider foundational signing of the Humanitas AI Compact, to be gathered electronically on the second month anniversary of Magnifica Humanitas. Prof. Aniagolu proceeded to sign the compact on behalf of Africa Institute of African American Studies (AIAAS), for which he is Chair

Dr. Sam Amadi, Nigeria’s former electricity regulator, was also among the physical signatories. Dr. Amadi who signed on behalf of CADER, holds an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, an LL.M and an SJD, both from Harvard Law School. He is Chairman of Center for AI, Digital Justice and Economic Rights (CADER), whose stated goal is ensuring that artificial intelligence reduces inequality.

Dr. Mehad Nasreldin, Sudanese public-health physician and digital-health advocate, signed on behalf of the African Institute of Public Health (AIPH) an African health coalition led by WAIPH, bringing a wider African public-health presence to the first physical witness.

Ghanaian-born Elder Appiah-Wilson, a member of the Board of Governors of Commonwealth Forum and a veteran senior security, intelligence, and immigration officer of the British Government, signed on behalf of Commonwealth Forum, bringing its development mandate and deep experience in protection, mobility, and conflict-affected communities.

The signing places Magnifica Humanitas within a Catholic tradition in which papal encyclicals are taken out of paper and given institutional life.

When Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum in 1891, he spoke to an industrial age that was changing labour, wages, ownership and the dignity of workers. Priests, workers, bishops and Catholic institutions moved. They organized around workers’ dignity, fair wages, the right of workers to associate, cooperatives, credit institutions, worker movements and institutions of social action.

In Spain, Fr. José María Arizmendiarrieta led a movement that helped turn that tradition into Mondragon, one of the world’s most important cooperative movements. Across countries, Catholic teaching on work and human dignity became schools, unions, cooperatives, credit unions, social movements and public action.

Now Pope Leo XIV has spoken to the age of artificial intelligence through Magnifica Humanitas. In Africa, the continent most exposed to poverty, weak health systems, conflict, exclusion and the vulnerability of women and girls, Rev. Fr. Prof. Hyacinth Ichoku is leading the first physical signing of the Humanitas AI Compact at Veritas University.

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES AND SEVEN COMMITMENTS

The Humanitas AI Compact rests on seven principles drawn from the tradition of Catholic social teaching and the direct teaching of Magnifica Humanitas: Human Dignity, Solidarity, Subsidiarity, The Common Good, The Universal Destination of Goods, Truth, and The Integral Person.

The Compact also carries seven commitments. Two of them shape the first practical phase.

Commitment II states: “We commit to equipping our students, staff and those we serve with genuine digital literacy: the capacity to understand AI, its possibilities, its limits and its meaning for human dignity.”

Commitment V states: “We commit to forming a renewed educational alliance for the digital age, with families, communities, associations and institutions across the world, placing the human person and the common good at the centre of all we do.”

These commitments will be translated into practical pathways for foundational signatories: free introductory AI training for teachers; AI literacy, global learning, international university engagement, exchange opportunities and future partner programmes for students; AI readiness diagnostics and model AI policy support for schools; global exchange, joint research and visiting-teaching pathways for teachers, lecturers and institutions; and applied AI, recognition, certification, market access and work-readiness pathways for artisans, technicians, traders and working learners.

Emmanuel Orjih, Director of Humanitas AI, who is giving executive direction to the programme, said the first field of action will be education and human formation.

Emmanuel, a Wharton MBA, former World Bank and U.S. Government professional, has 30 years’ experience across 28 countries in North America, Africa and Asia, including service as a top officer of Nigeria’s technology and innovation ministry.

“Catholic education shows the breadth of the field now being invited,” Emmanuel said. “The Catholic education network includes over 231,000 schools and universities serving over 71 million students worldwide. Catholic education analysis shows that four in ten Catholic-school students are in Africa, while World Bank-linked research shows that Africa accounts for more than half of Catholic primary-school enrolment globally.”

He said the urgency is also demographic and economic. Africa has crossed 1.5 billion people and is projected to move toward 2.5 billion by 2050, while Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s youngest population, with about 70 percent under the age of 30. In an age when artificial intelligence is changing work, reducing old job pathways and creating new forms of productive ability, Africa’s young people must be prepared not only to use AI, but to do the work AI cannot do.

He said the Humanitas AI Compact is not an African project only. It is a global response beginning from Africa, into to the Global South with Latin America and Asia playing anchor roles. Brazil and the Philippines, with their deep Catholic educational and institutional presence, point to the worldwide breadth of the response now being invited.

“The Pope has called institutions of learning by name,” Emmanuel said. “Now educational institutions worldwide are organizing. Universities, secondary schools, technical and vocational institutions, teacher-training institutions, civil society bodies, health institutions, and associations that raise the capacity of their members now have a common instrument through which they can respond.”

The next phase will invite institutions across the Global South to enter the foundational signing electronically through humanitasAI.org.

Institutions that enter the foundational signing will be invited into a first free introductory AI training pathway for teachers, lecturers and institutional leaders, together with initial guidance for preparing students, schools and working learners for the AI age.

“The AI age requires two abilities,” Emmanuel said. “The ability to marshal AI, and the ability to do what AI cannot do. The people who already do what AI cannot do must not be left outside the AI age. Artisans, technicians, traders and working learners must be brought into it with dignity, training, recognition, standardization and opportunity.”

The early fields of work will include teacher formation, technical and vocational skills, health and care, economic dignity, and support for institutions serving communities affected by conflict.

The wider foundational signing will be gathered electronically on the second month anniversary of Magnifica Humanitas. After that, each monthly anniversary of Magnifica Humanitas will be used to report progress, announce new signatories, identify new institutional participation, and present advances in training, partnerships, research and implementation.

The first physical signing at Veritas University was the opening act.

The next stage is the gathering of institutions as foundational signatories.

Universities, secondary schools, technical and vocational institutions, teacher-training institutions, civil society bodies, health institutions, associations and partners across the world would subsequently be invited to enter the Humanitas AI Compact.