The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has described Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative (NSCI) as the next major economic reform capable of transforming the country’s digital ecosystem, attracting investment and creating opportunities for local technology talent.
Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, stated this on Monday at the inauguration of the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative Implementation Taskforce (NSCI-ITF), where he said the initiative represented a shift from sector-specific reforms to an ecosystem-wide digital transformation.
Abdullahi said Nigeria’s previous major economic transformations, particularly the GSM and banking reforms, were largely sectoral, while the sovereign cloud initiative would affect virtually every aspect of the economy because digital technology now underpins education, healthcare, finance, agriculture, government and other sectors.
He said, “The greatest reform in terms of economic value in Nigeria was the GSM reform and the banking reform. The next wave of growth is what we are doing — the digital reform.
“If you look at GSM, it was a sectoral reform. The banking reform was also sectoral. But this is an ecosystem reform because digital is pervasive. Everything we do today depends on digital technology.”
The NITDA boss said Nigeria could unlock significant innovation by developing and controlling critical infrastructure across the digital ecosystem, particularly by ensuring that sensitive and sovereign data is hosted within the country.
He linked the initiative to President Bola Tinubu’s Nigeria First policy, saying the administration was determined to take greater control of the country’s economic future.
According to him, Nigeria cannot achieve effective digital transformation in areas such as healthcare, education and finance without having adequate control over the infrastructure supporting those services.
Abdullahi, however, stressed that the initiative was not intended to shut out foreign investors, noting that global data centre companies had already invested in Nigerian infrastructure providers.
He said the policy would instead create additional investment opportunities as Nigeria expands data centres, cloud infrastructure and related digital services.
“This policy is going to open more opportunities in terms of investment. We are all doing this in the spirit of creating value for our ecosystem. No one can do it alone because everything is converging. Therefore, the regulation and the policy have to converge,” he said.
The NITDA DG disclosed that the taskforce would prioritise meeting the Central Bank of Nigeria’s January 1 deadline for compliance with requirements relating to cloud infrastructure and data management.
He said NITDA would work with financial institutions through workshops and other engagements to showcase available solutions and build confidence among banks seeking to comply with the new requirements.
He also announced plans to develop an end-to-end certification framework covering infrastructure providers, cloud service providers and system integrators involved in helping financial institutions migrate to cloud environments.
According to him, the certification would ensure accountability and prevent situations where banks and their service providers shift responsibility to each other when compliance or implementation problems arise.
“We want, by October, to have a portal with a list of certified cloud system providers or aggregator providers, the infrastructure providers, the system integrators and aggregators,” Abdullahi said.
He explained that the portal would enable banks to select certified providers while giving regulators greater confidence that companies assisting financial institutions understand the relevant policies and requirements.
The taskforce is also expected to develop technology that will allow regulators to monitor compliance and maintain end-to-end visibility of where sovereign data is stored.
Abdullahi said NITDA should not have to rely entirely on regulated institutions to provide information about their compliance, insisting that regulators must have independent visibility into cloud infrastructure and data locations.
He said similar technological tools would be required by the CBN to monitor banks’ compliance, while financial institutions would also need technology to help them meet regulatory requirements.
Reform to retain Nigerian tech talent
The NITDA chief further said the sovereign cloud initiative could help reverse the loss of Nigerian technology professionals to foreign countries by creating new opportunities within the domestic market.
He lamented the decline of system integration firms in Nigeria as businesses increasingly moved towards cloud-based services, saying the country needed to rebuild the ecosystem and create a pipeline for highly skilled technology professionals.
Abdullahi said Nigerians currently working remotely for domestic financial institutions from overseas could instead be retained in the country if the right opportunities and infrastructure were developed.
“Why can’t you build and retain the talents in-country? I believe this reform will create opportunity for our young people. And also, it will help us create a talent pipeline,” he said.
He urged members of the taskforce to ensure that the initiative translated into practical results, stressing that NITDA did not develop the policy in isolation but worked with stakeholders to understand the challenges facing the industry.
He also appealed to the media to help explain the objectives and benefits of the reforms to Nigerians, arguing that public understanding would be critical to successful implementation.
In a goodwill message, the Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty, Ike Nnamani, described the inauguration as a significant moment in Nigeria’s digital transformation journey.
Nnamani said the policy could eventually be regarded alongside the GSM revolution and banking reforms as one of the country’s major technology-driven interventions.
He said the GSM revolution transformed the way Nigerians lived, worked and communicated because government policies opened up the telecommunications sector to investment.
According to him, similar policy-driven reforms in banking paved the way for the emergence of new-generation banks and the fintech industry.
“We are witnessing the next major intervention in Nigeria with this new policy. In the years to come, we will all look back and see the impact that this policy has created in the country,” Nnamani said.
He said digital sovereignty was also critical to national security because excessive dependence on foreign jurisdictions for data storage could expose Nigeria to strategic vulnerabilities.
Nnamani added that localising data infrastructure would reduce capital flight, ease pressure on the naira, attract foreign direct investment and generate employment through the construction of new data centres and supporting infrastructure.
He described the inauguration of the implementation taskforce as a major step in moving the sovereign cloud policy from formulation to execution.
Also speaking, the Acting Director, Regulation and Compliance at NITDA, Barrister Emmanuel Edet, said the inauguration marked the conclusion of the initial phase of developing the framework and the beginning of actual implementation.
Edet said the objective was to create a digital ecosystem in which regulators, government agencies, private-sector operators and other stakeholders could work together towards strengthening Nigeria’s digital sovereignty and creating a market capable of supporting economic growth.
He said the initiative was ultimately about creating a better environment for Nigeria’s digital economy and ensuring that the country could maximise the opportunities available in the rapidly evolving global technology landscape.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of Equinix West Africa, Wole Abu, said the implementation of the sovereign cloud policy could have a transformative impact comparable to the GSM revolution.
Abu argued that digital infrastructure alone could not deliver the desired economic transformation without appropriate policies and regulations to support its effective use.
He said the new policy could strengthen national security, reduce capital flight, attract investment in data centres and related infrastructure, and create jobs for Nigerians.
He urged stakeholders to recognise that implementation would take time and require sustained collaboration, but said beginning the process was essential to achieving greater sovereignty for Nigeria in the digital space.
