Kashifu Inuwa: Pushing National Sovereign Cloud to Position Nigeria as Digital Gateway for West, Central Africa

Dr. Kashifu Inuwa, Director-General of Nigeria's National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), shared the vision behind the recently signed National Sovereign Cloud initiative. His primary goal is to strengthen Nigeria's digital self-determination, localize critical infrastructure, and position the country as a digital gateway for West and Central Africa.

The drive for this initiative began in 2019 when the agency issued the "Cloud First policy." This policy aimed to discourage ministries and MDA's (Ministries, Departments, and Agencies) from building their own siloed data centers, instead encouraging the use of cloud services, which are more cost-effective, scalable, and easier to maintain.

Inuwa acknowledges that initially, government agencies shifted to public cloud services, but the need to foster a local ecosystem was overlooked. To address this, NITDA introduced a local content policy that necessitates data to be stored within the country, thereby nurturing the local ecosystem. Despite these efforts, the agency recognized that local cloud capacity still needed to be built to reduce capital flight, create jobs, and make digital services more affordable for Nigerians.

The National Sovereign Cloud initiative was designed to build local cloud capacity, reduce capital flight, create jobs, and ensure digital services are more affordable for Nigerians. It also focuses on ensuring resilience, cybersecurity, and digital trust. Inuwa explained that the initiative would build a digital triangle in Nigeria for resilience and service assurance. This would enable traffic to fail over to another location in case one site fails, thus enhancing service availability.

From the perspective of an average Nigerian, the initiative offers several benefits. Firstly, it aims to create local refineries for data, reducing dependency on imported services and minimizing capital flight. Secondly, it seeks to generate jobs within Nigeria by building big hyperscale data centers. Lastly, it intends to position Nigeria as the digital gateway for West and Central Africa, fostering economic growth and digital transformation in the region.