National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Budget Office of the Federation (BOF) have inaugurated a Joint Technical Committee for the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative (JTC-NSCI) to address critical fiscal, procurement, financing, investment and infrastructure issues required for the successful implementation of the initiative.
The committee is chaired by the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, while the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, serves as co-chair.
Its membership comprises key government institutions with responsibilities spanning public finance, procurement, investment, connectivity, power and energy, cybersecurity and data governance, among other areas.
Speaking at the inauguration, Yakubu said the committee was addressing an increasingly important issue of state capacity, particularly as government spending on digital infrastructure continues to rise in response to growing public reliance on digital services.
According to him, the committee’s central responsibility is to ensure that investments in digital infrastructure are properly planned, prioritised and supervised to deliver efficiency, resilience and value for public funds.
“Our challenge is to ensure that these investments are properly planned, appropriately prioritised, fiscally sustainable, and capable of delivering greater value from public resources.
“The National Sovereign Cloud Initiative should therefore help us to improve efficiency and resilience, reduce avoidable duplication, optimise existing capacity, and make better-informed investment decisions,” Yakubu said.
He noted, however, that government does not necessarily need to finance or own every component of the country’s digital infrastructure ecosystem.
Yakubu called for an approach that would mobilise private capital, encourage competitive markets and create credible long-term demand to complement public investment.
According to him, sovereign cloud implementation extends beyond technology, cutting across public finance, budgeting, procurement, investment, power, connectivity, cybersecurity, data governance and regulation.
“No single institution can address these issues in isolation,” he said, stressing the importance of collaboration among the various ministries, departments and agencies represented on the committee.
Yakubu said the committee’s work would be practical, evidence-driven and result-oriented, with progress measured by improved utilisation of existing assets, reduced duplication, stronger resilience, better value for public expenditure and increased private-sector investment.
In his remarks, Inuwa described the inauguration of the committee as a defining step towards strengthening Nigeria’s digital sovereignty and securing the future of its digital economy.
He warned that continued dependence on foreign digital infrastructure could leave Nigeria’s critical digital future in the hands of foreign companies.
“Anything about the fourth industrial revolution relies on our digital infrastructure, connectivity, and computing power.
“Relying on foreign services for all this digital infrastructure means we are putting our future in the hands of these foreign companies. So, digital sovereignty is about building our capacity for digital self-determination,” Inuwa said.
He said Nigeria must be able to determine its digital future and maintain greater control over its data, algorithms, artificial intelligence and digital transactions.
The NITDA boss said the agency was working towards certifying cloud service and infrastructure providers that meet Nigeria’s sovereign cloud standards, as well as system integrators that can support banks and government agencies in migrating their workloads.
Inuwa added that the initiative introduces a cloud-first policy aimed at helping government agencies reduce operational costs, cut the burden of running individual data centres and improve the efficiency of ICT spending.
He said the Joint Technical Committee would also help harmonise regulatory issues across government institutions and create an enabling environment for increased private-sector investment.
Also speaking, the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Dr Adebowale Adedokun, described the committee as a major shift towards achieving value for money in public expenditure across the economy.
Adedokun said the initiative was aligned with the provisions of the Public Procurement Act and pledged the bureau’s commitment to strengthening compliance to support the successful implementation of the sovereign cloud agenda.
“Our competitors are not sleeping. Nigeria cannot sleep. It is time for us to use our collective understanding, partnership, and collaboration to secure our nation digitally,” he said.
The formal inauguration of the JTC-NSCI signals the Federal Government’s move towards a more coordinated implementation of Nigeria’s sovereign cloud agenda by bringing together institutions responsible for fiscal policy, regulation, infrastructure, investment and security.
The committee will provide a focused inter-agency platform to examine issues including government ICT and cloud expenditure, total cost of ownership, utilisation of existing infrastructure, budget and procurement alignment, infrastructure financing, investment mobilisation and the fiscal implications of cloud adoption.
