The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has inaugurated a taskforce to drive the implementation of Nigeria’s sovereign cloud initiative, aimed at strengthening the country’s digital sovereignty, attracting investment, creating jobs and retaining technology talent.
Speaking at the inauguration in Abuja, NITDA Director-General, Kashifu Inuwa, described the initiative as a major ecosystem-wide reform with the potential to transform critical sectors of the economy, including education, finance, healthcare, agriculture and manufacturing.
Inuwa said the taskforce would prioritise 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.
He said the agency would also collaborate with 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 DG 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.
According to him, the portal will enable banks and other regulated institutions to identify accredited technology providers for their cloud migration needs.
Inuwa also stressed the importance of effective monitoring and visibility across cloud infrastructure to ensure that sovereign data remains hosted within Nigeria and that regulated institutions comply with applicable requirements.
He said the initiative would create new opportunities for Nigerian technology professionals by generating jobs and enabling skilled workers to build careers and businesses locally, thereby helping to reduce the migration of technology talent.
Speaking at the event, the Director of Payment System Policy at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Rakiya Yusuf, said digital stability was fundamental to the stability of the financial system.
Yusuf emphasised the importance of reliable and timely data for effective policy formulation 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.
Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer of Medallion Data Centres Limited, Ikechukwu Nnamani, said the sovereign cloud policy had the potential to attract significant foreign direct investment into Nigeria’s data centre, connectivity and cloud infrastructure sectors.
Nnamani said localising cloud infrastructure could reduce capital flight by keeping payments for cloud services within Nigeria while easing pressure on the naira.
He added that the initiative would create employment opportunities, strengthen national security and improve the quality of digital services through reduced latency.
“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 further said the development would provide Nigerians, particularly young people, with opportunities to acquire skills in emerging technologies and participate in the growing digital economy.
Earlier, the Acting Director of NITDA’s Regulation and Compliance Department, Emmanuel Edet, said the inauguration marked the transition from the development of Nigeria’s cloud guidelines to their implementation.
Edet said the taskforce would provide a platform for regulators, government agencies and private-sector stakeholders to work together towards strengthening Nigeria’s digital sovereignty and creating an enabling environment for economic growth.
“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.
