Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy Bosun Tijani said Tuesday that the federal government has unveiled the National Digital Cloud Policy, a framework with an investment target of $750 million over the next 24 months. The plan puts the state at the center of Nigeria’s digital infrastructure, with the ministry saying it wants to mobilise $250 million in private investment within the first 12 months before pushing that figure to $750 million.
Who Holds the Keys
Tijani said cloud and data infrastructure are now foundational to artificial intelligence, financial services, digital government, healthcare, education and the wider digital economy. That’s the language of the new gatekeepers: whoever controls the servers, controls the flow. He said Nigeria wants to move beyond being mainly a consumer of global cloud infrastructure and become a competitive location for cloud investment, infrastructure, skills and digital services serving Nigeria and the wider African market.
According to the ministry, the policy creates an open and competitive framework designed to attract investment into cloud, data centre and AI compute infrastructure. It will accelerate the government’s transition to secure, efficient cloud services and strengthen its capacity to host and export digital services across Africa. Tijani said, “Our approach is deliberately open and investment-oriented. We want Nigerian and international providers to invest, build capacity, develop talent and serve both the Nigerian market and the wider African continent from Nigeria. At the same time, government has a responsibility to ensure that its most sensitive digital assets are governed and secured in a manner consistent with our national interests. The National Digital Cloud Policy therefore provides a balanced framework — one that promotes investment and competition, strengthens indigenous capability, modernises government and applies sovereignty requirements only where they are genuinely necessary.”
The ministry said the policy does not impose general data localisation requirements on commercial data. It said sovereignty requirements are narrowly applied to defined categories of government and regulated data where national control is necessary. That’s the fine print of control: open markets for the providers, tight rules for the data that matters to the people running the apparatus.
The Machinery Behind the Policy
Together with investments such as Project BRIDGE and 3MTT, Tijani said the policy will connect the critical building blocks of Nigeria’s digital economy, from connectivity to computation and talent. The policy establishes clearly delineated institutional responsibilities to ensure its implementation. The National Information Technology Development Agency will provide regulatory oversight, standards and assurance, while Galaxy Backbone will lead operational delivery, shared infrastructure and aggregation. The Bureau of Public Procurement will ensure alignment with public procurement requirements.
The ministry said this separation of responsibilities is intended to provide regulatory certainty and avoid conflicts between regulatory, operational and procurement functions. A Sovereign Government Cloud Governance Committee, chaired by Tijani, will provide strategic oversight and whole-of-government coordination for the implementation of the sovereignty framework. The policy also establishes measurable performance indicators for implementation, including targets for private investment committed to Nigerian cloud and data infrastructure, installed compliant hosting capacity, regional capacity contracted from Nigeria, digital service export earnings, government migration, cost savings and skills development.
The implementation will proceed through a phased 24-month roadmap. The first six months focus on policy activation, baseline assessments, implementation directives, institutional arrangements and investment facilitation. Between six and 12 months, the government will operationalise the National Digital Marketplace, commence priority MDA migrations, onboard registered providers and begin regional market development activities. The subsequent 12 months will focus on scaling government migration, expanding capacity, onboarding participating states, strengthening regional interconnection and accelerating digital service exports.
The policy establishes four overarching priorities, including market development, regional digital services exports and government cloud transformation. It will prioritise investment and market development while creating a predictable and competitive environment for domestic and international investment in data centres, cloud infrastructure, connectivity and artificial intelligence compute capacity. It will also prioritise regional digital services exports to position Nigeria as a hosting, processing and interconnection hub for West Africa and the wider sub-Saharan African market.
What the Bottom Pays For
The ministry said, “A central feature of the Policy is the use of Government’s collective purchasing power to accelerate domestic infrastructure investment.” That line says plenty. Public power is being used to pull private capital into the system, while the state keeps the steering wheel and calls it sovereignty.
In Tanzania, the Union and Zanzibar governments are stepping up investment in education, skills development, Information and Communication Technology, entrepreneurship and other initiatives aimed at helping young people turn their ideas into businesses, innovations and employment opportunities. Second Vice-President Hemed Suleiman Abdulla made the remarks on behalf of Zanzibar President Dr Hussein Mwinyi when he officially opened the 2026 East Africa Youth Conference at Dr Ali Mohammed Shein Hall of the State University of Zanzibar in Tunguu, South Unguja.
Abdulla said youth development was a strategic investment in the future of the nation and said the government was committed to strengthening policies, programmes and systems that enable young people to participate fully in national development. He said, “Youth development is a strategic investment in the future of our nation.” He said the government, in collaboration with the African Development Bank, had implemented projects worth more than 54 million US dollars to support skills development and youth employment in the Blue Economy, with the initiatives expected to benefit more than 43,000 young people.
He said the governments were preparing young people for the demands of the current and future economy by equipping them with skills needed to compete in regional and international markets. He said significant investments under the Blue Economy agenda had promoted skills development, innovation and businesses based on marine resources, creating thousands of opportunities in employment, investment and entrepreneurship. He welcomed efforts by young people to develop the East Africa Youth Conference into a strong regional platform and said Zanzibar would continue supporting initiatives that promote youth development, regional cooperation and the exchange of experiences.
Minister for Youth, Employment and Empowerment Shaaban Ali Othman said his ministry would continue supporting youth-led initiatives through education, skills development and empowerment programmes. He said the government had placed emphasis on strengthening institutions and organisations working on youth development to ensure young people's aspirations were achieved. Global Youth Empowerment Executive Director Amina Sanga said one of the institution's main goals was to develop young leaders by providing training, tools and technology to enable them to invest in strategic areas of development. CRDB Bank Coastal Zone Manager Iddy Badru said the conference had brought together more than 3,000 young people and that CRDB had supported young people and women through financial literacy training, business advice and loans, with more than 15bn/- invested through various programmes.
Ruth Mueni from Kenya urged young people to understand themselves, build strong relationships and remain willing to learn and put their knowledge into practice. She also called on regional leaders to remove barriers to youth development, improve access to capital and reliable markets, and connect young people with opportunities both within and outside their countries.
Separately, the Foundation for Sustainable Smallholder Solutions launched the Global Agri Entrepreneurship Academy as part of activities marking the 2026 International Youth Day. The academy, known as GAEA, is designed to nurture the next generation of agricultural entrepreneurs, innovators and changemakers across Africa and beyond.
Brand and Communications Manager of FSSS, Clinton Inene, announced the initiative during a seminar on Thursday, saying the foundation, which is already improving agricultural productivity and strengthening livelihoods for thousands of smallholder farmers across Bauchi State, seeks to transform innovative ideas into sustainable ventures. Inene said the academy would equip participants with the practical knowledge, entrepreneurial mindset and connections required to develop impactful ventures. He said, “The Global Agri Entrepreneurship Academy is more than a learning platform. It is a launchpad for the next generation of agricultural innovators, entrepreneurs and changemakers. Through GAEA, we want to equip young people with the practical knowledge, entrepreneurial mindset and connections they need to transform ideas into impactful and sustainable ventures.”
According to him, participants would have access to expert-led learning sessions, mentorship opportunities, industry insights, practical resources and a growing community of young professionals committed to transforming agriculture. Executive Director of FSSS, Isaiah Gabriel, said the initiative demonstrated the organisation’s commitment to empowering young people and accelerating innovation across food systems. He said, “Young people are not just the future of agriculture; they are already shaping its future. GAEA is our commitment to supporting them with the tools, networks and opportunities they need to succeed and drive meaningful change in food systems across Africa and beyond.”
He said the organisation’s GroundBreakers initiative was created to stimulate conversations, inspire action and connect young people with opportunities shaping the future of food. Gabriel said the response to the first edition had been encouraging and said he hoped the 2027 edition would be bigger and provide more opportunities for participants to engage and collaborate in person.
Aisha Sidi, the Chief Executive Officer of Grabb Livestock, told young innovators to focus on the problems they sought to solve rather than technology itself. She said, “Don’t just fall in love with the idea, fall in love with the problem.” Drawing from her experience developing digital solutions for livestock farmers, she said Grabb Livestock changed its platform from a web-based application to a USSD solution after discovering that many rural farmers lacked the digital literacy required to use the original platform. According to her, the adjustment helped the company expand its reach from about 2,000 farmers to more than 50,000.
The CEO, CTO and Co-founder of Agrofount, Dayo Akinbami, said, “Nigeria doesn’t need technology for technology’s sake. We need young people who understand our problems deeply enough to use tech to solve them.” Akinbami urged participants to explore opportunities in agricultural data systems, saying reliable farmer data could improve access to finance, strengthen decision-making and promote innovation across the agricultural value chain. Another speaker, Alabi, said agricultural extension services are a “dying sector,” citing the widening gap between farmers and the advisory support they require. He said, “There are simply not enough extension officers to serve the millions of farmers we have today.” He encouraged young innovators to view the challenge as an opportunity to develop scalable digital solutions capable of delivering knowledge, advisory services and support to farmers more efficiently.