The Federal Government has launched a National Digital Cloud Policy aimed at attracting investment, strengthening Nigeria’s digital sovereignty and improving the delivery of government services.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, disclosed this in a statement issued to journalists in Abuja on Tuesday.
Tijani said the policy provides a national framework for developing, regulating and expanding Nigeria’s cloud computing and data infrastructure ecosystem.
According to him, the initiative is designed to position Nigeria as a major digital services and hosting hub in the region, while attracting local and foreign investment, building indigenous digital capacity, creating jobs and increasing digital service exports.
He said the policy is built around four major priorities: investment and market development, regional digital services exports, government cloud transformation, and digital sovereignty and security.
Tijani explained that the framework would create a more predictable and competitive environment for investments in data centres, cloud infrastructure, connectivity and artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity.
He added that Nigeria would be developed into a key hosting, processing and interconnection hub for West Africa and the wider Sub-Saharan African market. Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) would also be encouraged to adopt the government’s “Cloud First” approach.
The minister stressed that the policy would maintain an open and competitive cloud market with multiple providers, while sovereignty requirements would be limited to specific categories of government and regulated data rather than being extended broadly to commercial data.
To boost infrastructure development, the government plans to use its collective purchasing power through shared cloud services, coordinated procurement and whole-of-government aggregation. A National Digital Marketplace will also be introduced to promote transparency in procurement, alongside fiscal and regulatory incentives for qualifying cloud and data infrastructure projects.
Tijani said the government would further promote cross-border data flows, regional connectivity, compliance with international standards and digital service exports, allowing cloud services hosted in Nigeria to reach customers across ECOWAS and other parts of Africa.
He described cloud and data infrastructure as essential economic assets supporting sectors such as AI, financial technology, digital government, healthcare, education and commerce.
Under the policy, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) will oversee regulation, standards and assurance, while Galaxy Backbone will handle operational delivery, shared infrastructure and aggregation. The Bureau of Public Procurement will be responsible for ensuring compliance with procurement rules.
Tijani said implementation would be guided by a 24-month roadmap, with the government targeting $250 million in private investment within the first 12 months and $750 million within 24 months, alongside increased data-hosting capacity and growth in digital service exports.
He added that the policy would complement initiatives such as Project BRIDGE and the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) Programme, with the ministry working with relevant stakeholders to accelerate Nigeria’s digital transformation.
