Nigeria’s financial stability can no longer be assured through traditional regulatory methods, the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Inuwa, warned on Thursday at the Central Bank of Nigeria’s 15th Retreat of the Committee of Departmental Directors in Lagos. He told regulators that maintaining the integrity of the financial system now depends on sovereignty over the digital infrastructure that powers it.
Inuwa said the rapid expansion of electronic payments, which reached approximately N1.07 quadrillion in 2024, has created a financial system extending far beyond the reach of conventional supervisory models. He argued that regulators must shift from monitoring individual institutions to overseeing the entire digital ecosystem, including telecommunications networks, cloud platforms, Fintechs, and the data systems modern banking relies on.
“To achieve financial stability, we need digital stability. Without digital stability, today we cannot be talking about financial stability in the financial sector,” Inuwa said. “We cannot wait for regulated institutions to submit returns before we analyse and understand what is happening. We need end-to-end visibility of the ecosystem.”
He linked Nigeria’s financial security directly to control over critical digital infrastructure. “Financial stability now depends on resilient technology and Nigeria’s capacity for digital self-determination. If we do not build, control and maintain sovereignty over critical digital infrastructure, how can we guarantee the stability and integrity of our financial system?”
The future of supervision, he added, is not merely to digitise regulation but to digitally transform how regulators sense, understand and respond to risks across the ecosystem.
CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso, addressing participants virtually, said the bank is in a strong position following ongoing reforms. He urged staff to view institutionalisation as protection rather than a threat. “The Bank is in a good place. Our staff have nothing to fear. Reform and institutionalisation are not a threat to the career officer; they are the protection of the career officer,” he said.
Committee Chairman Jimoh Musa Itoba described the retreat as more than an annual engagement, charging directors to take greater ownership of financial stability and Nigeria’s economic growth ambitions. “The directors are the major anchors of the Bank,” he said, urging participants to challenge existing narratives and generate practical solutions for management implementation.
The question of control over Nigeria’s digital infrastructure has moved higher on the regulatory agenda. This week, NITDA and the Budget Office inaugurated a Joint Technical Committee to develop the fiscal, procurement, financing and investment structures needed to implement the sovereign cloud policy. Separately, NITDA has called for greater coordination among 15 ministries, departments and agencies to fully activate incentives under the Nigeria Startup Act, signed into law four years ago. The agency said effective implementation requires government institutions across sectors to work together so Startups and investors can access the benefits provided under the legislation.
