NITDA woos investors with policy-backed cloud demand
By Alabidun Shuaib AbdulRahman
The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has urged global technology companies, data centre operators and investors to take advantage of Nigeria’s emerging digital infrastructure market.
Inuwa made the call during a fireside chat titled, “From Policy to Investable Demand,” moderated by Jay Katatumba, Senior Investment Director, Africa50 Infrastructure Acceleration, at the Nigerian Workshop on Digital Infrastructure Opportunity during ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya.
The NITDA boss said the Federal Government was moving beyond its traditional role as a regulator by creating an environment capable of converting policy initiatives into investable and revenue-generating opportunities.
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Addressing data centre operators, hyperscalers, infrastructure providers, investors, financial institutions, cloud providers and subsea cable and fibre companies, Inuwa said innovation could only thrive when critical components of the digital ecosystem were interconnected.
He identified five key pillars required to sustain the ecosystem: higher institutions for human capital development, entrepreneurs for commercialisation, corporations to absorb talent and solutions, risk capital to support growth, and government to provide a stable enabling environment.
According to him, NITDA’s regulatory interventions are increasingly being designed to create markets, encourage innovation and protect consumers.
On how investors could move from policy alignment to revenue-backed commitments, Inuwa pointed to measures aimed at generating predictable demand for local digital infrastructure.
He cited the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directive requiring domestic processing of financial transactions as one of the policies capable of supporting demand for local cloud and data centre infrastructure.
He said the National Digital Cloud Policy and its investment roadmap were also designed to reduce risks for private investors seeking to build data centres, expand cloud capacity and develop local talent.
The NITDA DG also addressed concerns about the electricity requirements of data centres, saying operators would not be expected to depend solely on the national grid.
He explained that Nigeria’s regulatory framework allows operators to develop captive power solutions through renewable energy, gas-fired plants and Independent Power Purchase Agreements.
Inuwa also advocated hybrid cloud architectures to enable organisations to meet compliance requirements while maintaining operational flexibility.
Under the model, he said organisations could use public cloud infrastructure for processing while keeping sensitive information within local facilities.
He stressed that localisation requirements were primarily targeted at sovereign data, including sensitive financial, health and intelligence information.
According to him, the exposure of such data to foreign jurisdictions could create economic, security and geopolitical vulnerabilities.
The NITDA boss said Nigeria’s digital infrastructure opportunities extended across connectivity, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
He said Project Link was expanding broadband access across the country, while the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative was expected to provide the computing foundation needed to support local AI workloads.
Inuwa stressed that sovereign AI capability had become increasingly important as automated decision-making was being deployed in areas including financial credit, healthcare and judicial systems.
He said Nigeria’s progress in digital policy and AI governance was already attracting international attention, noting that recent global benchmarks ranked the country 35th worldwide in AI governance and policy.
The NITDA DG urged investors to take advantage of Nigeria’s policy initiatives, expanding digital market and large population, saying the government was prepared to partner with private capital to build secure, scalable digital infrastructure for Nigeria and the wider African market.
