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The National Information Technology Development Agency and the Budget Office of the Federation have inaugurated a Joint Technical Committee to drive the implementation of Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative.
Inaugurated on Thursday, the committee will focus on the fiscal, procurement, financing, and investment structures needed to turn the policy into reality.
The committee has the Budget Office Director-General Tanimu Yakubu as chairman and NITDA Director-General Kashifu Inuwa as co-chair.
The move marks a shift from policy design to implementation, bringing together key institutions across public finance, procurement, investment, infrastructure, connectivity, power, cybersecurity, data governance, and regulated sectors under one coordinating platform.
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What they are saying
While speaking at the inauguration, Inuwa highlighted the strategic importance of developing trusted domestic cloud and digital infrastructure capable of supporting government, regulated sectors and critical national workloads.
He said the initiative would also create an enabling environment for private-sector investment and innovation.
Inuwa emphasised that implementing the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative requires more than technology and regulation. It also requires alignment between the government’s digital infrastructure priorities and the fiscal, procurement, financing and investment mechanisms needed to support them sustainably.
NITDA said the committee will examine issues including government ICT and cloud expenditure, total cost of ownership, utilisation of existing infrastructure, budget and procurement alignment, infrastructure financing, investment mobilisation, and the fiscal implications of cloud adoption.
The agency said the committee brings together representatives from public finance, procurement, investment, infrastructure, connectivity, power, cybersecurity and data governance to ensure these considerations are addressed in a coordinated manner rather than in isolation.
Get up to speed
Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative has moved rapidly from policy development to implementation in August, with the Federal Government putting both regulatory and investment frameworks in place.
- On August 5, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) signed three key regulatory instruments under the initiative: the National Cloud Computing Guideline, the National Cloud Technical Guideline, and the National Digital Infrastructure Assurance Framework (NDIAF). It also presented the National Cloud Investment Strategy.
NITDA said the frameworks were designed to provide a structured national approach to cloud adoption, digital sovereignty, infrastructure assurance and investment.
- On August 18, the Federal Government unveiled the National Digital Cloud Policy, targeting $750 million in private investment over the next 24 months.
The policy is intended to provide a coordinated framework for attracting private investment into cloud and data-centre infrastructure as part of the government’s broader digital economy agenda.
The latest development, the inauguration of the Joint Technical Committee by NITDA and the Budget Office, therefore marks another milestone in the process.
What you should know
Private-sector investment in domestic cloud and data-centre infrastructure is also gathering pace.
- In May, digital infrastructure company Kasi Cloud unveiled the first phase of a planned 100MW data-centre campus in Lekki, Lagos, designed to support artificial intelligence workloads, enterprise cloud services and connectivity platforms.
- Kasi Cloud said the facility could help retain in Nigeria part of the estimated $850 million that Nigerian enterprises spend annually on offshore cloud services.
The company said its first facility, LOS1, is designed to provide an AI-ready, institutional-grade alternative within Nigeria’s borders, potentially reducing data-sovereignty concerns and the costs associated with relying on foreign cloud infrastructure.
