The Federal Government has unveiled a National Digital Cloud Policy designed to attract $750 million in private investment into Nigeria’s cloud computing and data infrastructure within the next 24 months.
The policy, launched by the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy on Monday, seeks to expand domestic cloud and data centre capacity, create jobs, strengthen local digital capabilities and establish Nigeria as a regional hub for digital services and data hosting.
Under the framework, the government is targeting $250 million in private investment during the first 12 months, with the figure expected to reach $750 million by the end of the second year.
The policy is structured around four broad areas: investment and market development, regional digital services exports, government cloud transformation, and digital sovereignty and security.
The government said the framework would preserve an open and competitive cloud market in which multiple providers could operate.
Policy targets investment and competition
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, said Nigeria needed to transition from being primarily a consumer of international cloud infrastructure to becoming a location for investment, infrastructure development, talent and digital services.
“Nigeria must move from being primarily a consumer of global cloud infrastructure to becoming a competitive location for the infrastructure, investment, skills and digital services that will define the next phase of the global digital economy,” Tijani said.
He said the government wanted both Nigerian and international cloud providers to invest in the country, develop local capacity and use Nigeria as a base to serve the domestic and wider African markets.
According to him, the policy also seeks to ensure that sensitive government digital assets are protected in line with national interests.
“Our approach is deliberately open and investment-oriented,” the minister said, adding that the framework was intended to promote investment and competition while strengthening indigenous capabilities and modernising government.
Tijani clarified that the policy did not impose blanket data-localisation requirements on commercial data.
Instead, he said sovereignty requirements would apply only to defined categories of government and regulated data where national control was deemed necessary.
Government to aggregate cloud demand
To stimulate investment, the Federal Government plans to aggregate cloud demand from registered providers and introduce shared government cloud services.
The ministry said the approach would reduce duplicated government spending, improve commercial terms and create predictable demand for private-sector investment.
The government also plans to establish a National Digital Marketplace for coordinated procurement of cloud and digital infrastructure services, alongside dedicated cloud budget arrangements and an anchor-capacity mechanism.
Under the implementation framework, the National Information Technology Development Agency will provide regulatory oversight, standards and assurance.
Galaxy Backbone will lead operational delivery, shared infrastructure and demand aggregation, while the Bureau of Public Procurement will ensure that procurement arrangements comply with public-sector requirements.
24-month implementation plan
The policy’s 24-month roadmap is divided into three broad phases.
During the first six months, the government will focus on activating the policy, conducting baseline assessments and establishing the required institutional arrangements.
The period between six and 12 months will focus on operationalising the National Digital Marketplace, beginning the priority migration of Ministries, Departments and Agencies to cloud services and onboarding registered providers.
The final 12 months will involve scaling migration, expanding cloud infrastructure, bringing participating state governments into the framework and accelerating digital services exports.
The government said it also intended to increase Nigeria’s participation in regional digital services through cross-border data flows, regional interconnection and alignment with international standards.
According to Tijani, the objective is to enable cloud and data services hosted in Nigeria to serve customers across the Economic Community of West African States and the wider African market.
Policy linked to fibre and skills initiatives
The National Digital Cloud Policy is expected to complement other government digital infrastructure and skills programmes.
The framework is linked to Project BRIDGE, which aims to deploy at least 90,000 kilometres of additional fibre-optic infrastructure across Nigeria.
It will also complement the 3 Million Technical Talent programme, which is developing skills in areas including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and software engineering.
The government said the combination of expanded connectivity, increased cloud capacity and a growing pool of digital talent would help strengthen Nigeria’s position in the regional digital economy while creating opportunities for domestic technology companies and international investors.
