By Stella Odueme
The Federal Government has unveiled plans to leverage about $1 billion in annual public sector technology spending to accelerate the development of Nigeria’s domestic cloud computing and digital infrastructure ecosystem.
The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, disclosed this while speaking at a workshop on “Nigeria’s Digital Infrastructure Opportunity” during ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Abdullahi said in a statement by the Director of Corporate Communications and Media Relations of NITDA, Mrs. Hadiza Umar, on Wednesday that the initiative was designed to position Nigeria as a major cloud computing hub in West Africa by creating structured demand, providing regulatory certainty and encouraging investment in locally hosted digital infrastructure.
He said Nigeria currently faces a significant gap between its growing digital demand and available domestic computing capacity, with local data capacity operating at nearly 90 per cent utilisation.
According to him, the Federal Government is responding through the institutionalisation of a Cloud-First Policy, which seeks to consolidate public sector technology spending and make government a major anchor customer for cloud infrastructure providers.
The NITDA Director-General disclosed that 326 federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) spent N3.89 trillion, equivalent to about $2.9 billion, on technology investments between 2023 and mid-2026.
He said government technology demand alone generates nearly $1 billion annually, adding that the government intends to channel the spending towards cloud services and shared digital architecture rather than developing isolated data centres across individual agencies.
Abdullahi also said NITDA was working to simplify the regulatory environment for investors through a unified compliance framework and a single-interface portal designed to streamline approvals across relevant government agencies.
He explained that the framework would promote regulatory coordination while allowing sector-specific regulators, including the Central Bank of Nigeria, to adopt common baseline requirements.
This, he said, would make it easier for businesses, particularly financial institutions, to migrate critical data and services to locally hosted cloud platforms without facing multiple layers of overlapping regulatory approvals.
The NITDA boss stressed that the initiative was aimed at creating a competitive digital market rather than imposing excessive localisation requirements or using regulation primarily as a revenue-generating mechanism.
He said Nigeria’s expanding digital economy provided a strong foundation for the initiative, noting that broadband penetration had risen to more than 56 per cent, while the country had about 192 million mobile subscribers and 157 million internet users.
Abdullahi further cited estimates indicating that every dollar invested in Nigeria’s digital infrastructure could generate about eight dollars in wider economic returns.
He added that Nigeria’s domestic cloud market was projected to grow from approximately $376 million in 2026 to more than $783 million by 2031.
Beyond Nigeria, the government plans to position the country as a digital infrastructure and cloud services hub for West and Central Africa.
The National Digital Cloud Policy targets $750 million in digital infrastructure investments within two years, including an initial $250 million in private-sector capital during the first year.
Abdullahi said Nigeria would also work with neighbouring countries to harmonise digital standards and develop cross-border data transfer frameworks.
He said the broader objective was to strengthen Africa’s digital sovereignty by ensuring that African countries have greater control over how their data is hosted, protected and scaled, while creating opportunities for Nigeria to serve regional markets.
The initiative, he said, would ultimately help Nigeria transition from being predominantly a consumer of offshore digital services to becoming a major provider of cloud computing and digital infrastructure for the continent.