NITDA, Budget Office Set Up Joint Committee for Nigeria’s Sovereign Cloud Initiative – Innovation Village

The Federal Government of Nigeria has inaugurated the Joint Technical Committee on the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative (JTC-NSCI).

The inter-agency body brings together the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Budget Office of the Federation (BOF), It is tasked with aligning public finance, procurement practices, and investment structures to operationalize the country’s sovereign cloud strategy.

The inauguration, held on Friday in Abuja, marks a shift from policy design to execution. It follows the unveiling of the National Digital Cloud Policy earlier this week, which sets an ambitious target to attract $750 million in private investment into domestic data centers and cloud services over the next 24 months.

Bridging Tech Policy and Fiscal Discipline

The committee is chaired by Tanimu Yakubu, Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, with Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director-General and CEO of NITDA, serving as Co-Chair. Speaking at the inauguration, Inuwa highlighted that technical guidelines and regulatory frameworks alone cannot guarantee digital independence.”Implementing the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative requires more than technological and regulatory measures,” Inuwa stated. “We need alignment between Nigeria’s digital infrastructure priorities and our fiscal, procurement, financing, and investment mechanisms. We must build trusted domestic cloud platforms capable of supporting government, regulated sectors, and critical national workloads while enabling private-sector innovation.”

He noted that between 2023 and 2026, information technology project proposals submitted by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) for clearance totaled over ₦4.2 trillion. While rigorous review processes led by NITDA saved the…