Kashifu Inuwa, Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has emphasised that robust policy frameworks, not just infrastructure, will shape Nigeria’s digital future.
Inuwa, represented by Dr Aristotle Onumo, Director of Stakeholders Management and Partnership, made this known at the IoT West Africa Conference themed “The Lagos Abuja Digital Corridor: Building Africa’s Next Data Centre and Cloud Hub”.
Onumo stated that while infrastructure meets demand, policy creates the enabling environment for sustainable digital growth, citing Nigeria’s broadband policy that mandates minimum speeds of 10 Mbps in rural areas and 25 Mbps in urban centres to guide deployment along the Lagos-Abuja corridor.
He stressed the need for collaboration among government, private sector and civil society, saying: “Collaboration massifies impact while partnership harnesses collective intelligence. No one can achieve this alone.”
Onumo highlighted the Nigerian Sovereign Cloud Project, designed to bolster local cloud providers, domesticate data hosting, cut costs and counter foreign hyperscale dominance by scaling infrastructure to global standards.
He added that policies must stimulate demand, pointing to government server consolidation as a driver for cloud investment and data centre development.
The NITDA boss advocated public-private partnerships for co-creating, co-owning and co-delivering digital services, noting: “We now view IT as an integrated system that delivers value to the people.”
Onumo called on stakeholders to partner with NITDA, declaring: “If we must succeed, we need you, and you need us. Together, we can build a digitally enabled Nigeria for inclusive growth.”
He spotlighted NITDA’s Digital Literacy for All initiative, targeting 70 per cent digital skills penetration by 2027 through NYSC partnerships to train 30 million Nigerians across 774 local government areas in three years.
In a related development, Dr Vincent Olatunji, National Commissioner/CEO of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), urged stronger data protection amid the data centre boom.
Olatunji, in his Day 2 keynote, emphasised data sovereignty under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, warning of compliance benefits versus non-compliance risks, as data centres become critical infrastructure.
Lamenting that over 90 per cent of Nigeria’s data is hosted abroad, he called for investments in the sector projected to hit $1.9 billion by 2031.
