The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, has outlined Nigeria’s strategic approach to unlocking the next wave of investment in technology infrastructure, particularly data centres.
Inuwa made the remarks during a high-level industry panel titled “Converting Digital Demand into Data Centre Investment” at the recently concluded ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026. He participated alongside Ike Nnamani of Digital Realty Nigeria, Wole Abu of Equinix, Temitope Osunrinde of Africa Hyperscalers and Cherotich Kiereini of Oracle.
He emphasised that converting Nigeria’s rapidly growing digital footprint into bankable and sustainable investments requires a deliberate combination of government direction, regulatory certainty and secure digital ecosystems.
At the centre of the government’s approach, Inuwa said, is a commitment to providing clear and predictable policies. According to him, the government’s primary responsibility is to clearly establish its strategic intentions and create a stable framework that not only guides infrastructure development but also actively catalyses growth across the technology sector.
He noted that providing investors with regulatory certainty would enable operators to build with confidence, knowing how infrastructure will be deployed, governed and consumed across the market.
Highlighting Nigeria’s unique advantages, Inuwa noted that the country’s value extends far beyond its large population. He said the focus is now on capturing growing market demand created by localised digital workloads while leveraging Nigeria’s geographical position as a major transit and connectivity hub for West and Central Africa.
He added that Nigeria’s deep pool of local technology talent, capable of developing innovative solutions directly on modern digital networks, positions the country to host the region’s digital future.
To sustain this momentum, NITDA is placing digital trust at the centre of national development through robust cybersecurity frameworks.
Inuwa explained that initiatives such as the Digital Assurance Framework, the Cybercrime Act and the broader National Cybersecurity Architecture are helping to establish end-to-end security across every layer of the digital chain.
From individual last-mile devices to critical national infrastructure, government IT projects are now subject to strict cybersecurity-by-design clearances.
Through these targeted policy measures and collaborative security standards, Inuwa said Nigeria is establishing the predictable foundation needed to support the next generation of data centres, cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence infrastructure.
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