Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science and Automation are transforming organisations, labour markets and public administration, yet their adoption raises interrelated concerns about ethics, data governance, privacy, cybersecurity and workforce displacement. This paper examines these dimensions together and proposes a framework for responsible, human-centered AI-driven automation, with particular attention to Nigeria. The study combines an integrative review of multidisciplinary literature with qualitative document analysis of legal and policy instruments and a comparative analysis of documented cases across ten jurisdictions: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany and China. AI principles have converged internationally but remain difficult to operationalise; data governance is the foundation on which fairness, privacy and security depend; AI introduces distinctive attack surfaces such as data poisoning, model extraction and membership inference; and automation transforms tasks more often than it eliminates whole occupations, making upskilling decisive. Nigeria exhibits rapid deployment of data-intensive systems alongside a governance lag, although regulatory enforcement under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 is strengthening. The paper proposes the Integrated Responsible Automation Framework (IRAF), which positions data governance as the foundation for three pillars (responsible and ethical AI, privacy and security by design, and workforce and organisational readiness), maps controls to the AI lifecycle, and derives four testable propositions. It offers actionable guidance for policymakers, organisations and educators, especially in emerging economies.