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, eliminate overlapping mandates and accelerate digital infrastructure investment in Africa.

Inuwa made the call while speaking at a Regulatory Roundtable on “Regulations that Builds: Aligning Policy and Digital Infrastructure Investment Priorities” during the ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026 event in Nairobi.

The NITDA Director-General said investors needed governments to operate as a single, coordinated interface rather than navigate a fragmented network of institutions with overlapping responsibilities.

According to him, greater coordination among government agencies would eliminate regulatory duplication, speed up licensing processes and provide investors with predictable timelines for entering and operating in the digital economy.

He said the convergence of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, cloud computing and high-density data centres, had made traditional sector-by-sector regulation increasingly inadequate.

Inuwa explained that NITDA was therefore promoting a horizontal regulatory framework, under which broad digital standards could serve as a foundation for sector-specific regulators.

He cited Nigeria’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative as an example, noting that the Central Bank of Nigeria had leveraged NITDA’s horizontal framework to issue a single circular for the financial sector.

He said the approach enabled banks to comply with digital stability requirements without having to obtain separate approvals from multiple regulatory agencies.

On cross-border data transfers and regional digital markets, Inuwa advocated unified 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 seamless data exchange while allowing them to recognise one another’s compliance standards without imposing duplicative procedures.

The NITDA boss also addressed concerns over perceptions that technology companies are viewed primarily as sources of regulatory revenue.

He said NITDA operates a Regulatory Intelligence Framework designed to facilitate business growth and investment rather than extract revenue from businesses.

“Regulation,” he explained, should be viewed as a tool for shaping economic behaviour and creating enabling markets rather than merely as a rigid set of rules.

He added that NITDA does not charge businesses for its regulations, stressing that the agency’s focus is on creating 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/Economic Policy Lead, Africa, Meta; and Eng. Dennis Chepkwony, Director, Universal Service Fund, Communication Authority of Kenya.

The discussions highlighted the need for African regulators, governments and industry stakeholders to strengthen coordination and develop interoperable regulatory systems capable of supporting the continent’s rapidly expanding digital infrastructure and emerging technology ecosystem.

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