The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has called for a unified regulatory approach across government institutions to tackle red tape, overlapping mandates and delays confronting investors in Africa’s digital infrastructure sector.
The Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, made the call while speaking at a Regulatory Roundtable session titled, “Regulations that Builds: Aligning Policy and Digital Infrastructure Investment Priorities,” at the ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026 event.
Inuwa said investors, both foreign and domestic, should not have to navigate a fragmented network of government agencies with overlapping responsibilities when entering or expanding within the market.
According to him, government institutions must operate as a single, cohesive unit by establishing a unified regulatory interface that eliminates duplication, speeds up licensing and provides businesses with predictable timelines.
“The investor wants to see government as one,” Inuwa said, stressing that greater coordination among agencies would significantly improve the ease of doing business in the digital economy.
He noted that the rapid convergence of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, cloud computing and high-density data centres, had made traditional sector-by-sector regulatory approaches increasingly inadequate.
To address the challenge, NITDA is adopting a horizontal regulatory framework that establishes broad standards which sector-specific regulators can subsequently build upon.
Inuwa cited Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative as an example of how such an approach could reduce regulatory duplication.
He explained that the Central Bank of Nigeria leveraged NITDA’s horizontal framework to issue a single circular for the financial sector, enabling banks to comply with digital stability requirements without having to obtain separate approvals from multiple government agencies.
The NITDA chief said the model could also be extended to cross-border data transfers and digital markets across Africa.
He advocated the development of common regulatory standards anchored on interoperability, trust and security, arguing that harmonised frameworks would make it easier for African countries to exchange data and recognise one another’s compliance standards.
Inuwa said standardised data classifications would also help distinguish sovereign data that must remain within national borders from information that could be hosted on public or hybrid cloud infrastructure.
Such harmonisation, he argued, would reduce the need for businesses operating across multiple African markets to undergo repetitive local compliance procedures.
The NITDA boss also addressed concerns that regulatory agencies sometimes regard technology companies primarily as sources of government revenue.
He said NITDA’s regulatory approach is guided by a Regulatory Intelligence Framework designed to support business growth and shape economic behaviour rather than impose unnecessary financial burdens on companies.
Inuwa stressed that NITDA does not charge businesses for its regulations, saying the agency’s focus is on creating viable markets, developing local capacity and attracting sustainable, long-term investment into Nigeria’s digital economy.
Other participants on 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 & Horn of Africa and Economic Policy Lead, Africa, Meta; and Eng. Dennis Chepkwony, Director, Universal Service Fund, Communication Authority of Kenya.
The discussions underscored the growing need for African regulators to move beyond fragmented national and sectoral approaches as investment in cloud computing, data centres, artificial intelligence and other digital infrastructure accelerates across the continent.