• Nigeria moves to protect critical data with cloud initiative

More than 62 per cent of information technology (IT) projects undertaken by government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have failed to meet the expectations of the institutions that commissioned them, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Dr Kashifu Abdullahi, has disclosed.

Abdullahi disclosed yesterday while speaking as a panellist at the 66th Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), 2026, during a session on ‘e-Commerce and Procurement’.

He said the development was largely attributable to weaknesses in the conception, design, procurement and implementation of government IT projects, stressing that the situation had raised concerns about value for money in public expenditure.

Giving details of the figures, Abdullahi said: “To be specific, from July 2023 to July 2026, we received proposals for IT project clearance in the tune of 1,092 IT projects from 326 MDAs out of more than 1,300 MDAs in Nigeria.

“These projects were more than N4.24 trillion, and we cleared 1,056 projects at the tune of N3.84 trillion. And based on our findings, because we do quality assurance after project clearance, more than 62 per cent of those projects failed to meet the expectations of those MDAs,” he said.

He blamed the problem partly on a procurement practice in which contractors prepare project proposals that were subsequently used by MDAs for budgetary appropriation, before the same contractors were engaged to implement the projects.

According to him, such an arrangement could allow contractors to determine the design and implementation of projects, placing greater emphasis on profit maximisation than on the actual business needs of the government institution.

MEANWHILE, Nigeria has officially launched the National Sovereign Cloud Initiative Implementation Taskforce (NSCI‑ITF) through the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), marking a major step in strengthening digital sovereignty and local cloud infrastructure.

The initiative is designed to reduce reliance on foreign cloud providers, where over $850 million is lost in capital flight yearly, secure critical national data, and attract fresh private investment over the next two years.

Speaking at the inauguration in Abuja, the Director General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, described the initiative as a major ecosystem-wide reform capable of transforming critical sectors of the Nigerian economy.

According to him, unlike previous reforms in the telecommunications and banking sectors, the digital transformation agenda cuts across virtually every area of the economy, including education, finance, healthcare, agriculture and manufacturing.

Inuwa, in a statement yesterday, said the taskforce would prioritise compliance with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s January 1 deadline for financial institutions, noting that NITDA would organise workshops to showcase compliant cloud solutions and build confidence among banks and other regulated institutions.