The Federal Government has intensified efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s digital sovereignty, attract fresh investment into the technology sector and create new employment opportunities with the inauguration of a taskforce to drive the implementation of the country’s sovereign cloud initiative.
The taskforce, inaugurated by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in Abuja, is expected to translate Nigeria’s cloud policy and guidelines into practical measures that will ensure critical data and cloud infrastructure are securely hosted within the country.
Speaking at the inauguration, NITDA Director-General, Kashifu Inuwa, described the initiative as a major ecosystem-wide reform with the potential to transform virtually every sector of the Nigerian economy.
Inuwa noted that while previous reforms in sectors such as telecommunications and banking had largely focused on specific industries, digital transformation was much broader, with implications for education, finance, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing and other critical sectors.
He said the taskforce would give immediate attention to compliance with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s January 1 deadline for financial institutions, adding that NITDA would organise workshops to showcase compliant cloud solutions and build confidence among banks and other regulated institutions.
According to him, the agency would also work with relevant stakeholders to develop an end-to-end certification framework covering infrastructure providers, cloud service providers and system integrators involved in migrating financial institutions to compliant cloud environments.
“We want you to work with us to co-design how we can certify the infrastructure providers, the cloud service providers, and cloud educators. Because we need to certify end-to-end, from the infrastructure, the cloud services, and those who will go and help banks to migrate,” he said.
The NITDA boss disclosed that the agency planned to launch a portal by October, containing a directory of certified cloud service providers, infrastructure providers, system integrators and aggregators.
He explained that the platform would enable banks and other regulated institutions to identify accredited technology providers capable of supporting their migration to compliant cloud environments.
Beyond compliance, Inuwa emphasised the importance of establishing effective monitoring and visibility across cloud infrastructure to guarantee that sovereign data remains hosted within Nigeria and that regulated organisations adhere to applicable requirements.
He also linked the initiative to Nigeria’s efforts to retain technology talent, arguing that the growth of domestic cloud infrastructure would create opportunities for Nigerian professionals to develop skills, build careers and establish businesses without having to seek opportunities abroad.
The Director of Payment System Policy at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Rakiya Yusuf, said the success of the initiative would have implications for the stability of the financial system, stressing that digital stability was fundamental to financial stability.
Yusuf highlighted the importance of reliable and timely data to effective policymaking and decision-making, assuring that the CBN would continue to collaborate with NITDA and other stakeholders to ensure successful implementation of the framework.
She described the sovereign cloud initiative as an important component of Nigeria’s broader economic transformation agenda.
For the private sector, the policy presents an opportunity to deepen investment in Nigeria’s digital infrastructure.
The Chief Executive Officer of Medallion Data Centres Limited, Ikechukwu Nnamani, said the initiative could attract significant foreign direct investment into the country’s data centre, connectivity and cloud infrastructure sectors.
He explained that localising cloud infrastructure could also reduce capital flight by ensuring that payments for cloud services are retained within Nigeria, while helping to ease pressure on the naira.
“We are beginning to see a lot of companies come to Nigeria to physically deploy and implement their cloud infrastructure locally. So that is going to drive in foreign direct investment into the country,” he said.
Nnamani added that the expansion of local cloud infrastructure would create opportunities for Nigerians to acquire expertise in emerging technologies while contributing to employment generation, particularly for the country’s large and youthful population.
Earlier, the Acting Director of NITDA’s Regulation and Compliance Department, Emmanuel Edet, said the inauguration represented a decisive shift from developing Nigeria’s cloud guidelines to implementing them.
Edet said the taskforce would provide a platform for regulators, government institutions and private-sector players to jointly develop an environment capable of strengthening Nigeria’s digital sovereignty while unlocking wider economic opportunities.
“We want to create a framework where regulators, stakeholders, private sector can actually work together to achieve a common goal which will eventually translate to other sectors of the economy,” he said.
He reaffirmed NITDA’s commitment to ensuring that Nigeria fully harnesses the opportunities presented by the digital economy.
“We hope to continue in that stead to ensure that we achieve all what the potentials of a country as large as Nigeria can attain in the digital environment,” Edet said.
With the inauguration of the taskforce, Nigeria’s sovereign cloud agenda is moving beyond policy formulation into implementation, positioning domestic cloud infrastructure not merely as a technology project, but as a strategic instrument for economic growth, national security, investment attraction, talent retention and digital independence.