The federal government has unveiled a national digital cloud policy as part of efforts to attract $750 million in private investment into Nigeria’s cloud and data infrastructure within two years.
The policy was unveiled on Monday, according to a statement by the ministry of communications, innovation and digital economy.
The ministry said the move is aimed at positioning Nigeria as a regional hub for cloud computing, data hosting, and digital services.
Under the policy, the government is targeting $250 million in private investment within the first 12 months and $750 million by the end of the 24-month implementation period.
The framework was said to be designed to create an environment for investment in data centres, cloud infrastructure, connectivity, and artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity.
According to the ministry, the policy has four broad priorities: investment and market development, regional digital services exports, government cloud transformation, and digital sovereignty and security
The ministry also said the framework will not impose general data localisation requirements on commercial data,instead, the ministry said sovereignty requirements will 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 an incentive for private investors to build infrastructure in Nigeria,“A National Digital Marketplace will also be established to facilitate the procurement of cloud and digital infrastructure services,” the statement reads.
“The policy provides for dedicated cloud budget arrangements and an anchor-capacity mechanism to improve predictability in government demand.”
The ministry said the government would introduce fiscal, regulatory, commercial, and investment facilitation measures for qualifying cloud and data infrastructure projects.
It said the measures would cover areas including fiscal treatment of qualifying infrastructure and equipment, regulatory facilitation, energy constraints, capital mobility and export earnings,Investors benefiting from government incentives would also be subject to technology-transfer and capability-development requirements,” the ministry said.
On regional expansion, the ministry said the policy would support cross-border data flows, regional interconnection, international standards alignment, and export promotion.
The objective, the statement said, is 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, Bosun Tijani, minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, said cloud and data infrastructure have 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.
“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 minister said the government will 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 government wants the policy 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, modernizes government and applies sovereignty requirements only where they are genuinely necessary,” he said.
Under the framework, the ministry said the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) will oversee regulation, standards and assurance, while Galaxy Backbone (GBB) will be responsible for operational delivery, shared infrastructure, and demand aggregation.
The statement said the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) will ensure compliance with public procurement requirements.
The government will implement the policy through a 24-month roadmap, the ministry said.
“The first six months will focus on policy activation, baseline assessments, implementation directives, institutional arrangements and investment facilitation,” the statement further reads.
“Between six and 12 months, the government plans to launch the National Digital Marketplace, begin priority migration of MDAs, onboard registered providers and commence regional market development.
“The remaining 12 months will focus on scaling government migration, expanding infrastructure capacity, onboarding participating states, strengthening regional interconnection and increasing digital service exports.”
The ministry said progress would be measured using indicators including private investment, installed compliant hosting capacity, regional capacity contracted from Nigeria, digital service export earnings, government migration, cost savings and skills development.
The policy is expected to complement Project BRIDGE, which aims to deploy at least 90,000 kilometres of additional fibre-optic infrastructure, and the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme, which is focused on developing skills for cloud computing, AI, cybersecurity, and software engineering.