Nnadiebube Journal of social sciences

Global digital migration and rapid urbanization are causing a profound generational disconnect across sub-Saharan Africa, leading to the collapse of traditional evening storytelling frameworks among digitalnative youth. Concurrently, contemporary efforts to preserve these oral art forms are hindered by the structural and systemic biases embedded within global generative artificial intelligence (AI) models, which routinely reinforce Eurocentric cultural and linguistic hegemonies. This paper critiques these dynamics through a postcolonial digital humanities framework, examining how the conscious remediation of oral folklore can transform generative technologies from instruments of algorithmic erasure into active tools for digital cultural sovereignty, civic literacy, and social accountability. Using a comparative digital ethnographic methodology spanning an 18-month observational window, this study analyzes three contemporary West African AI-assisted short-form folktale productions streaming across mobile-first networks (TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels): an Igbo localized theatrical production (The Orphan Prince of Umuachara by Tracie Utoh-Ezeajugh), a Yoruba satirical trickster series (Ìjàpá and Larondo by ContentByTL), and an Efik monarchical-ecological animation (The Beautiful Princess Who Stole from the Gods by BABEEPIX STORIES). The analysis reveals that by engineering proprietary cultural prompt matrices, utilizing localized audio datasets, and re-contextualizing traditional moral engines to confront modern socio-political realities, these Digital Griots successfully override Western technological defaults. The study concludes with actionable recommendations for sub-Saharan higher education institutions to institutionalize data stewardship and open-access digital humanities labs, ensuring that indigenous knowledge systems actively reshape emerging computational environments.