By: Tijani Salako.
The Federal Government has unveiled a National Digital Cloud Policy aimed at attracting $750 million in private investment into Nigeria’s cloud and data infrastructure within the next two years.
This was obtained from the official X handle of the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, noting that the ministry’s new policy is designed to position Nigeria as a regional hub for cloud computing, data hosting and digital services.
The policy, unveiled on Monday, targets $250 million in private investment within the first 12 months and $750 million by the end of the 24-month implementation period.
According to the ministry, the framework is designed to create an enabling environment for investment in data centres, cloud infrastructure, connectivity and artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity.
The policy has four broad priorities: investment and market development, regional digital services exports, government cloud transformation, and digital sovereignty and security.
The ministry said the framework would not impose general data localisation requirements on commercial data.
Instead, sovereignty requirements would apply to specific categories of government and regulated data where national control is considered necessary.
The government also plans to aggregate cloud demand from federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to reduce duplicated spending and secure better commercial terms.
The ministry said the arrangement would create predictable demand for cloud capacity and provide incentives for private investors to develop infrastructure in Nigeria.
It added that a National Digital Marketplace would be established to facilitate the procurement of cloud and digital infrastructure services.
“The policy provides for dedicated cloud budget arrangements and an anchor-capacity mechanism to improve predictability in government demand,” the ministry said.
The government is also expected to introduce fiscal, regulatory, commercial and investment facilitation measures for qualifying cloud and data infrastructure projects.
According to the ministry, the measures would cover areas including fiscal treatment of qualifying infrastructure and equipment, regulatory facilitation, energy constraints, capital mobility and export earnings.
It added that investors benefiting from government incentives would be subject to technology transfer and capability development requirements.
On regional expansion, the ministry said the policy would support cross-border data flows, regional interconnection, alignment with international standards and export promotion.
It said the objective was to enable cloud and data services hosted in Nigeria to serve customers across the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the wider African market.
Speaking on the policy, Tijani said cloud and data infrastructure had become essential to the digital economy.
“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,” Tijani said.
He said the government’s approach was “deliberately open and investment-oriented,” adding that it wants Nigerian and international providers to invest, build capacity, develop talent and serve both the Nigerian market and the wider African continent from Nigeria.
The minister said the government would also protect sensitive digital assets while maintaining an open market for cloud providers.
“At the same time, government has a responsibility to ensure that its most sensitive digital assets are governed and secured in a manner consistent with our national interests,” he said.
Tijani said the policy was intended to support both local and foreign participation in the sector.
“The National Digital Cloud Policy therefore provides a balanced framework one that promotes investment and competition, strengthens indigenous capability, modernises government and applies sovereignty requirements only where they are genuinely necessary,” he said.
