By Saminu Ibrahim
Nigeria is repositioning itself from a traditional technology regulator to an active market enabler as it seeks to attract private capital into the country’s digital infrastructure sector.
The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, disclosed this during a fireside chat titled, “From Policy to Investable Demand,” at the Nigerian Workshop on Nigeria’s Digital Infrastructure Opportunity held during ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya.
SINL Nigeria Online reports that the session was moderated by Jay Katatumba, Senior Investment Director, Africa50 Infrastructure Acceleration.
Addressing data centre operators, hyperscalers, infrastructure providers, investors, financial institutions, cloud providers, subsea cable and fibre connectivity companies, Inuwa said Nigeria was developing policies aimed at converting regulatory mandates into actual market demand and investment opportunities.
He said the country’s National Cloud Infrastructure Strategy was designed to bridge the gap between public policy and private capital, while creating an enabling environment for investors to build and scale digital infrastructure.
According to him, sustainable innovation depends on interconnected local ecosystems involving higher institutions, entrepreneurs, corporate organisations, risk capital and government.
He explained that universities and other higher institutions would develop human capital, entrepreneurs would commercialise innovations, while corporate organisations would absorb talent and deploy solutions.
“Risk capital is needed to de-risk market growth, while government must establish a stable and enabling environment,” he said.
The NITDA boss added that regulatory actions by the agency were increasingly being designed to create markets, stimulate local innovation and strengthen consumer protection.
De-risking digital infrastructure
On how investors could move from policy alignment to revenue-backed commitments, Inuwa cited measures designed to generate demand for local digital infrastructure.
He pointed to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directive requiring domestic processing of financial transactions as an example of policies capable of creating predictable demand for local data centres and cloud services.
He said the National Digital Cloud Policy and its investment roadmap were also designed to reduce investment risks by providing clearer pathways for private-sector participation, development of local data centres and expansion of digital talent pipelines.
On concerns over power supply and the pressure that growing data-processing requirements could place on the national grid, Inuwa said digital infrastructure operators would not be required to depend exclusively on grid electricity.
He said existing regulatory frameworks allow operators to develop captive power solutions, including renewable energy, gas-fired plants and Independent Power Purchase Agreements.
The NITDA DG also advocated hybrid cloud architectures to ensure business continuity during compliance periods.
Under the model, he said organisations could use public cloud infrastructure for certain processing activities while keeping sensitive information in locally hosted facilities.
Inuwa stressed that localisation requirements were particularly important for sovereign data, including sensitive financial records, health information and intelligence-related data.
He argued that keeping such information within national jurisdiction was critical to protecting economic and citizen security and reducing geopolitical vulnerabilities.
Nigeria targets interconnected digital ecosystem
Inuwa further identified connectivity, cloud computing and artificial intelligence as interconnected areas offering major investment opportunities.
He said Project Link was expanding broadband connectivity across the country to ensure that citizens were digitally visible and adequately represented in automated decision-making systems.
At the same time, he said the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative would provide the computing infrastructure required to support local artificial intelligence workloads.
The NITDA chief stressed that developing sovereign AI capabilities had become increasingly important as automated systems began influencing areas such as financial credit assessments, healthcare allocation and judicial processes.
He said Nigeria’s efforts were already attracting international recognition, noting that recent global benchmarks placed the country 38th worldwide in AI governance and policy.
He also said the International Monetary Fund had identified Nigeria as a leader in Africa’s emerging AI economy.
Inuwa therefore urged global technology companies, infrastructure developers and investors to take advantage of Nigeria’s emerging opportunities, assuring them that the country was ready to work with private capital to develop secure, scalable and sustainable digital infrastructure for Nigeria and the wider African market.
