Ubuntu is increasingly invoked in AI ethics as a relational African ethical resource and as an African alternative to liberal individualism. But mere invocation is not meaningful structural integration. Anye-Nkwenti Nyamnjoh argues that unless questions of power, institutional design, contestation and remedy are brought into view, Ubuntu risks entering AI governance only as rhetorical affirmation, signalling epistemic presence without reshaping how harms, power and accountability are actually handled. He offers four concrete governance recommendations: → Participatory authority with real decision-making power for those most affected → Reciprocity in data practices through solidarity-based data agreements → Restorative responses to harm that go beyond procedural correction → Collective data stewardship through an Ubuntu-informed data commons cigionline.org/publications/…