Nigeria targets $750m digital infrastructure investment
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Nigeria targets $750m digital infrastructure investment
By Alabidun Shuaib AbdulRahman
The Federal Government has set a target of attracting $750m investment in digital infrastructure over the next two years as it moves to position Nigeria as West Africa’s leading cloud computing hub.
The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, disclosed this while speaking at a workshop titled, “Nigeria’s Digital Infrastructure Opportunity,” during the ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Inuwa said the target included $250m in private capital expected in the first year as the government seeks to expand the country’s cloud computing, data centre and digital infrastructure capacity.
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According to him, Nigeria is seeking to move from being largely a consumer of offshore digital services to becoming a major regional provider of cloud computing capacity.
He said the initiative was being driven by the huge domestic demand for computing and digital services, noting that much of Nigeria’s digital value currently flows to foreign servers.
The NITDA boss said local data capacity was already operating at nearly 90 per cent utilisation, making increased investment in domestic infrastructure imperative.
He said the Federal Government was leveraging its purchasing power to create structured demand for private investors through its newly institutionalised Cloud-First Policy.
The policy, according to him, would consolidate fragmented Information Technology spending across government agencies and direct more of the spending towards cloud services and shared digital architecture.
Inuwa disclosed that 326 Federal Government ministries, departments and agencies spent N3.89tn, approximately $2.9bn, on technology investments between 2023 and mid-2026.
He added that government demand alone generated nearly $1bn annually, stressing that the funds could serve as a significant anchor for private investment in cloud infrastructure.
The NITDA DG said, “To ensure investor confidence, NITDA is replacing fragmented, unpredictable oversight with a unified regulatory approach.”
He explained that the agency was establishing a single-interface portal to simplify compliance across multiple government institutions and reduce regulatory bottlenecks facing investors.
He added that the framework would allow sector regulators, including the Central Bank of Nigeria, to adopt shared baseline requirements, making it easier for financial institutions to migrate appropriate data to local cloud systems.
Inuwa stressed that the regulatory framework was designed to create a market rather than extract revenue from investors, adding that the government was prioritising competition and international interoperability.
He said Nigeria’s broadband penetration had recently risen to more than 56 per cent, with about 192 million mobile subscribers and 157 million Internet users.
The NITDA chief said the domestic cloud market was projected to grow from $376m in 2026 to more than $783m by 2031.
Beyond Nigeria, he said the Federal Government was seeking to leverage the country’s strategic geographical position to provide digital infrastructure and services to other West and Central African countries.
Inuwa said the National Digital Cloud Policy was expected to facilitate cross-border data transfers through harmonised standards and regulatory frameworks.
He said the objective was to strengthen Africa’s digital sovereignty by ensuring that countries had greater control over how their data was hosted, secured and scaled.
The NITDA boss urged global technology companies, cloud providers and local infrastructure developers to take advantage of the opportunities emerging from Nigeria’s digital transformation agenda.
