Nigeria’s federal government has launched a National Digital Cloud Policy aimed at attracting $750 million in private investment into the country’s cloud and data infrastructure over the next 24 months, as it seeks to position itself as a regional digital services hub.
The policy was announced in a statement by Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, on Monday. It sets an initial goal of mobilising $250 million in private investment within the first 12 months, rising to $750 million by the end of the second year, alongside steady growth in compliant hosting capacity and Nigeria’s regional cloud export market.
Tijani said the country needed to shift away from relying mainly on foreign cloud infrastructure and instead become a competitive base for the investment, skills and digital services that will shape the next phase of the global digital economy.
The framework rests on four priorities: attracting investment into data centres and cloud infrastructure; positioning Nigeria as a hosting and interconnection hub for West Africa and the wider sub-Saharan region; driving government adoption of cloud services through a “Cloud First” approach across ministries and agencies; and strengthening digital sovereignty by setting risk-based rules for handling sensitive government and regulated data, while leaving commercial data outside those requirements.
A National Digital Marketplace will coordinate cloud procurement across government agencies, pooling demand to cut duplicated spending and strengthen the state’s negotiating position with providers. Implementation is planned over 24 months, beginning with policy activation and baseline assessments before moving to priority government migrations, provider onboarding and, in later phases, expanded infrastructure and regional service exports.
The policy follows NITDA’s recent signing of regulatory documents under Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative, and complements Project BRIDGE, which targets 90,000 km of additional fibre-optic infrastructure, and the 3 Million Technical Talent programme, which is training Nigerians in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and software engineering.
