Nigeria has unveiled a National Digital Cloud Policy aimed at attracting $750 million in private investment into cloud and data infrastructure within the next 24 months, as the Federal Government seeks to turn the country into a major digital services hub for Africa.
The policy, unveiled on Monday by the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, sets an initial investment target of $250 million within the first year before scaling to $750 million by the end of the second year.
The initiative is designed to expand domestic cloud capacity, encourage data-centre investment, strengthen local technology capabilities and enable services hosted in Nigeria to reach markets across West Africa and the wider continent.
Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. ‘Bosun Tijani, said Nigeria must move beyond being primarily a consumer of foreign cloud infrastructure.
“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,” Tijani said.
The framework focuses on four areas: investment and market development, regional digital-services exports, government cloud transformation, and digital sovereignty and security.
A key measure is a stronger “Cloud First” approach across federal ministries, departments and agencies. Government plans to aggregate cloud demand and procure shared services, potentially reducing duplicated spending while creating predictable demand for private infrastructure investors.
The policy will also establish a National Digital Marketplace for coordinated procurement of cloud and digital infrastructure services.
Importantly, the government said it would not impose blanket data-localisation rules on commercial information. Instead, stricter sovereignty requirements will apply to defined categories of government and regulated data considered to require national control.
Qualifying cloud and data infrastructure projects are expected to receive coordinated fiscal and regulatory support, including measures addressing energy constraints, capital mobility, export earnings, technology transfer and skills development.
The policy complements Project BRIDGE, which targets at least 90,000 kilometres of additional fibre-optic infrastructure, and the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme, which is developing skills in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and software engineering.
Implementation will run over 24 months. The first six months will focus on activation and institutional arrangements, followed by government cloud migration and provider onboarding. The final phase will scale infrastructure, expand participation by states and accelerate regional digital-service exports.
NITDA will oversee regulation and standards, Galaxy Backbone will lead operational delivery and shared infrastructure, while the Bureau of Public Procurement will ensure compliance with procurement rules.
For Nigeria, the policy represents a broader attempt to make digital infrastructure an investment and export platform rather than simply a cost of doing business. Its success, however, will depend on execution, reliable power, connectivity, investor confidence and the ability to convert government demand into sustained private-sector investment.
