By Angeline Mgbele, Bureau Chief, Northern Nigeria
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has inaugurated a taskforce to drive the implementation of Nigeria’s sovereign cloud initiative, a move aimed at strengthening the country’s digital sovereignty, attracting investment, creating jobs and retaining technology talent.
The Director of Corporate Communications and Media Relations at NITDA, Hajia Hadiza Umar, conveyed this in a press statement yesterday.
Per the statement, speaking at the inauguration in Abuja, north central, Nigeria, the Director-General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, described the initiative as a major ecosystem-wide reform capable of transforming critical sectors of the Nigerian economy.
According to Mallam Abdullahi, unlike previous reforms in the telecommunications and banking sectors, the digital transformation agenda cut across virtually every area of the economy, including education, finance, healthcare, agriculture and manufacturing.
Abdullahi said the taskforce would prioritise compliance with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s January 1 deadline for financial institutions, noting that NITDA would organise workshops to showcase compliant cloud solutions and build confidence among banks and other regulated institutions.
He said the agency would also collaborate with stakeholders to develop an end-to-end certification framework covering infrastructure providers, cloud service providers and system integrators involved in migrating financial institutions to compliant cloud environments.
“We want you to work with us to co-design how we can certify the infrastructure providers, the cloud service providers, and cloud educators. Because we need to certify end-to-end, from the infrastructure, the cloud services, and those who will go and help banks to migrate,” he said.
The NITDA DG disclosed that the agency planned to launch a portal this October to provide a directory of certified cloud service providers, infrastructure providers, system integrators and aggregators.
He explained that the portal would enable banks and other regulated institutions to identify and select accredited technology providers for their cloud migration requirements.
Abdullahi further stressed the need for effective monitoring and visibility into cloud infrastructure to ensure that sovereign data remained hosted within Nigeria and that regulated institutions complied with applicable requirements.
He said the initiative would also provide greater opportunities for Nigerian technology professionals by creating jobs and enabling skilled workers to build careers and businesses locally, thereby helping to reduce the migration of technology talent.
In her remarks, the Director of Payment System Policy at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Rakiya Yusuf, said digital stability was fundamental to the stability of the financial system.
Yusuf stressed the importance of having access to reliable and timely data for effective policy formulation and decision-making, noting that the CBN would continue to collaborate with NITDA and other stakeholders to ensure successful implementation of the framework.
She described the initiative as an important component of Nigeria’s broader economic transformation efforts.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty, Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani, said the sovereign cloud policy could attract significant foreign direct investment into Nigeria’s data centre, connectivity and cloud infrastructure sectors.
Engr. Nnamani said the localisation of cloud infrastructure could also help reduce capital flight by keeping payments for cloud services within Nigeria while easing pressure on the naira.
He added that the initiative would generate employment opportunities, strengthen national security and improve the quality of digital services through reduced latency.
“We are beginning to see a lot of companies come to Nigeria to physically deploy and implement their cloud infrastructure locally. So that is going to drive in foreign direct investment into the country,” he said.
Nnamani added that the development would create opportunities for Nigerians to acquire skills in emerging technologies and contribute to employment generation, particularly among the country’s growing youthful population.
Earlier, the Acting Director of NITDA’s Regulation and Compliance Department, Emmanuel Edet, said the inauguration marked the transition from the development of Nigeria’s cloud guidelines to their implementation.
Edet said the taskforce would provide a platform for regulators, government agencies and private-sector stakeholders to work together towards strengthening Nigeria’s digital sovereignty and creating an enabling environment for economic growth.
“We want to create a framework where regulators, stakeholders, private sector can actually work together to achieve a common goal which will eventually translate to other sectors of the economy,” he said.
He added that NITDA, as a pioneer agency in Nigeria’s digital ecosystem, remained committed to ensuring that the country fully harnessed the opportunities presented by the digital economy.
“We hope to continue in that stead to ensure that we achieve all what the potentials of a country as large as Nigeria can attain in the digital environment,” Edet said.
