The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has inaugurated the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative Implementation Taskforce (NSCI-ITF) to drive the implementation of Nigeria’s sovereign cloud policy and strengthen the country’s digital infrastructure.
The Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, said the initiative represents a major ecosystem-wide reform capable of unlocking investment, creating jobs, retaining technology talent and strengthening Nigeria’s control over critical digital infrastructure.
Speaking at the inauguration in Abuja, Abdullahi said unlike previous reforms in the telecommunications and banking sectors, the digital reform cuts across virtually every area of the economy, including education, finance, healthcare, agriculture and manufacturing.
He said the taskforce would prioritise meeting the Central Bank of Nigeria’s January 1 deadline for financial institutions, including through workshops to showcase compliant cloud solutions and build confidence among banks.
According to him, NITDA would also work with stakeholders to develop an end-to-end certification system covering infrastructure providers, cloud service providers and system integrators involved in helping financial institutions migrate 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.”
Abdullahi said the agency plans to have a portal by October listing certified cloud service providers, infrastructure providers, system integrators and aggregators, enabling banks to select accredited providers.
He added that regulators would require technology capable of providing visibility into cloud infrastructure to ensure that sovereign data remains hosted within Nigeria and that regulated institutions comply with the relevant requirements.
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The NITDA chief said the initiative would also create opportunities for Nigerian technology professionals and help reduce the loss of skilled talent to migration by creating more opportunities for them to work and build businesses locally.
In her remarks, the Director of Payment System Policy at the Central Bank of Nigeria, Rakiya Yusuf, said digital stability was fundamental to financial system stability, stressing the importance of having access to reliable data at the right time for effective policy decisions.
She said the CBN would work with NITDA and other stakeholders to ensure the successful implementation of the framework, describing the initiative as important to Nigeria’s broader economic transformation ambitions.
Foreign Direct Investment
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of Medallion Data Centres Limited, Ikechukwu Nnamani, said the policy could attract significant foreign direct investment into Nigeria’s data centre, connectivity and cloud infrastructure sectors.
Nnamani also said localising cloud infrastructure could reduce capital flight by keeping payments for cloud services within Nigeria and easing pressure on the naira.
He added that the initiative could generate employment, 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.”
“We are going to see a lot of employment generation created. Nigerians will be trained on this technology and it’s going to help with the youthful population growth we are talking about creating employment for.”
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 actual implementation.
He 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.”
“NITDA has always been a pioneer agency and 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”.
