NITDA DG Pushes Unified Regulation To Attract Digital Investment
By Stella Enenche,Abuja
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 reduce red tape and attract greater investment in Africa’s digital infrastructure.
Inuwa made the call at a regulatory roundtable on “Regulations that Builds: Aligning Policy and Digital Infrastructure Investment Priorities,” on Tuesday in Nairobi, Kenya.
He said fragmented regulatory processes, overlapping mandates and delays in licensing remained major obstacles for both domestic and foreign investors seeking to enter Africa’s digital markets.
According to him, investors want government to operate as “a single, cohesive unit” rather than a collection of institutions with overlapping responsibilities.
“Aligning government agencies internally to establish a single regulatory interface would eliminate duplications, accelerate licensing approvals, and give businesses predictable timelines when entering the market,” he said.
The NITDA DG 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 said NITDA was therefore promoting a horizontal regulatory framework that establishes broad standards which sector-specific regulators could adopt and build upon.
Inuwa cited Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative as an example, explaining that the Central Bank of Nigeria was able to leverage NITDA’s horizontal framework to issue a single circular for the financial sector.
“This approach allowed banks to comply with digital stability rules without needing to secure separate approvals from multiple agencies,” he said.
On cross border data transfers, the NITDA boss advocated common African standards built around interoperability, trust and security.
He said standardised data classifications distinguishing sovereign in-country data from public and hybrid cloud assets would help African countries facilitate data exchange while reducing repetitive compliance procedures.
Inuwa also rejected concerns that regulators primarily see technology companies as sources of revenue, saying NITDA’s regulatory approach was designed to support business growth and investment.
He said the agency operates a Regulatory Intelligence Framework aimed at shaping economic behaviour, developing markets and strengthening local capacity rather than extracting revenue from businesses.
“NITDA does not charge for its regulations,” he said, adding that the agency’s focus was on “creating markets, building local capacity, and attracting long term investment.”
The roundtable also featured Caroline Okafor of the Legal Enforcement and Regulation division of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission; Tony Izuagbe Emoekpere, President of the 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.
