By Chimezie Godfrey
The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has called for a unified regulatory framework across government agencies to remove bottlenecks confronting investors in Nigeria’s digital infrastructure sector.
Inuwa said fragmented regulations, overlapping mandates and delays in approvals could discourage both domestic and foreign investment, stressing the need for government agencies to operate as a single, coordinated interface for businesses.
The NITDA DG stated this on Tuesday in Nairobi, Kenya, while speaking at a regulatory roundtable on “Regulations that Builds: Aligning Policy and Digital Infrastructure Investment Priorities” at the ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026.
He said investors wanted to deal with a government that operated as a cohesive unit rather than navigate a maze of institutions with overlapping responsibilities.
According to him, better coordination among government agencies would eliminate duplication, speed up licensing processes and provide investors with predictable timelines when entering the market.
Inuwa said the rapid convergence of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, cloud computing and high-density data centres, had made traditional sector-by-sector regulation inadequate.
He explained that NITDA was therefore adopting a horizontal regulatory framework based on broad standards that could be applied and built upon by sector-specific regulators.
He cited Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative as an example of how the approach could work, noting that the Central Bank of Nigeria had leveraged NITDA’s horizontal framework to issue a single circular for the financial sector.
The approach, he said, enabled banks to comply with digital stability requirements without obtaining separate approvals from multiple government agencies.
Expanding the proposal to cross-border data transfers and regional digital markets, Inuwa called for common standards anchored on interoperability, trust and security.
He said African countries could facilitate seamless data exchange by adopting standardised data classifications that clearly distinguish sovereign in-country data from public and hybrid cloud assets.
Such an approach, he added, would enable countries to recognise each other’s compliance standards and reduce the need for businesses to undergo multiple regulatory procedures in different jurisdictions.
The NITDA boss also addressed concerns over the perception that regulatory agencies primarily view technology companies as sources of revenue.
He said NITDA operated under a Regulatory Intelligence Framework designed to promote business growth rather than extract revenue from the sector.
“Regulation is a tool to shape economic behaviour, not a rigid rulebook,” Inuwa said, stressing that NITDA did not charge businesses for its regulations.
He said the agency’s focus was on creating markets, developing local capacity and attracting long-term investment into Nigeria’s digital economy.
Inuwa said a coordinated regulatory environment would not only make Nigeria more attractive to investors but also strengthen the country’s position in Africa’s rapidly expanding digital economy.
Other members of the panel included Caroline Okafor, Legal Enforcement and Regulation, Nigeria Data Protection Commission; Tony Izuagbe Emoekpere, President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria; Mercy Ndegwa, Director, Public Policy, East and Horn of Africa/Economic Policy Lead, Africa, Meta; and Eng. Dennis Chepkwony, Director, Universal Service Fund, Communications Authority of Kenya.
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