The Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy, has unveiled the National Digital Cloud Policy, targeting $750 million in private investment within 24 months.
This was disclosed in a statement signed by the Minister of Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy, Dr. ‘Bosun Tijani, on Monday and shared with Nairametrics.
The development comes days after the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) signed key regulatory documents under Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative (NSCI), aimed at establishing a trusted cloud ecosystem and strengthening the country’s digital infrastructure.
According to Tijani, the policy represents a major component of the Federal Government’s broader digital economy agenda and provides a coordinated framework to attract investment into cloud and data centre infrastructure.
According to him, the policy will position Nigeria as a regional digital services and hosting hub, modernise government service delivery, strengthen indigenous digital capability, and establish proportionate safeguards for government and regulated data.
- “The Federal Government’s initial ambition is to mobilise US$250 million in private investment within the first 12 months, rising to US$750 million within 24 months, alongside progressive increases in compliant hosting capacity and the development of Nigeria’s regional cloud export market,” the statement partly reads.
The policy establishes four priorities: Investment and market development, Regional digital services exports, Government cloud transformation, and Digital sovereignty and security.
He stated that a central feature of the policy is the use of the government’s collective purchasing power to accelerate domestic infrastructure investment.
- “Under the whole-of-government aggregation framework, Government will aggregate demand for cloud capacity from multiple registered providers and provide shared government cloud services.
- “This approach is designed to reduce duplicated expenditure, secure better commercial terms for Government and create predictable anchor demand capable of supporting long-term private investment in Nigerian digital infrastructure,” the statement partly reads.
The Minister stated that 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.
- “Our approach is deliberately open and investment-oriented. We want Nigerian and international providers to invest, build capacity, develop talent, and serve both the Nigerian market and the wider African continent from Nigeria.
- “The National Digital Cloud Policy therefore provides a balanced framework—one that promotes investment and competition, strengthens indigenous capability, modernizes government, and applies sovereignty requirements only where they are genuinely necessary,” he added.
