10th U6+ Consortium of African Universities International Conference

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into language work via neural machine translation (NMT), large language models (LLMs), and computer aided translation (CAT) tools is redefining translator competence. For Arabic to English translation, a language pair characterized by significant morphological, syntactic, and cultural distance, AI automates routine tasks but struggles with idioms, register, and culturally embedded meaning, leaving an essential role for human expertise in the translation process. This paper examines how Arabic to English translation education in Nigerian universities responds to this shift, situating the discussion within Africa’s Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR) vision of human centered, technology augmented development. Drawing on translation competence scholarship, this paper argues that Nigerian programs historically rooted in classical Arabic philology and religious education have been slow to institutionalize translation technology and post editing instruction, leaving graduates underprepared for an AI augmented market. This paper reviews the strengths and weaknesses of Arabic to English machine translation, identifies infrastructural, curricular, and attitudinal barriers to AI integration in Nigeria, such as the lack of institutional AI policies and faculty unfamiliarity with tech pedagogy, and proposes a revised competence framework combining linguistic cultural mastery with technological proficiency, post editing skills, and AI ethics. It concludes that preparing Nigerian translators for the 5IR requires deliberate curriculum reform, infrastructure investment, and inter university collaboration, positioning graduates not as casualties of automation but as indispensable human in the loop mediators of accuracy, culture, and meaning.