The United Kingdom and Nigeria are advancing their strategic partnership through a high-level international benchmarking and knowledge exchange tour, focusing on the end-to-end clearance of IT projects and the procurement of public digital products and services.
Hosted by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), through its Digital Access Programme, in collaboration with leading UK digital governance institutions, including Government Digital Service (GDS), Public Digital, Crown Commercial Service (CCS), British Standards Institute, and the FCDO Cyber Policy Department.
The programme brings together senior officials from Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Galaxy Backbone Limited (GBB), and Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), for a week-long engagement in London from November 23 to 28, 2025. This programme builds on the UK–Nigeria Strategic Partnership’s pillars of economic development, governance reform, and technology cooperation, ensuring that both countries leverage digital innovation to drive inclusive growth and secure public services.
For Nigeria, this engagement will inform the enhancement of NITDA’s IT Project Clearance, improve procurement efficiency, and embed global best practices in cybersecurity, digital and data governance of public digital services. This engagement reinforces the UK’s role as a trusted partner in Nigeria’s inclusive digital transformation journey, as well as providing open access to the UK technology supply chain for the Nigerian market.
While delivering the opening remarks, NITDA Director General, Kashifu Inuwa Abduallahi, represented by Dr Usman Gambo Abdulahi, the Director IT Project Clearance Unit, said: “At the heart of Nigeria’s reforms is our determination to improve government service delivery, reduce waste, strengthen cybersecurity, and build trust in public digital systems. Modernizing the IT Projects Clearance process, therefore, is a key enabler to achieving this vision. I commend the UK’s FCDO through the Digital Access Programme for its consistent support of Nigeria’s digital transformation journey. I thank the UK Government and its various departments for agreeing to share insights and expertise that will certainly strengthen our institutions and our nation’s governance capacity”.
The FCDO’s Director for International Science and Technology, Ros Eales, in his speech, observed: “Nigeria is a key partner of the UK in the tech sector. Working with partner countries like Nigeria is to ensure that digital transformation works for all and is safe, secure, and sustainable. This becomes even more important in an era of rapid technological evolution, accelerated by AI, with all its benefits to reap and risks to manage.”
The British Deputy High Commissioner in Lagos, Jonny Baxter, said: “The UK is proud to stand as a key partner to Nigeria, leveraging our expertise to drive knowledge exchange in digital governance and institutional reform. This technical collaboration underscores our longstanding commitment to Nigeria’s digital transformation and to building strategic partnerships that deliver shared economic growth for both nations.”
Head of Digital Development in FCDO London, and global lead of the UK Digital Access programme (DAP), Alessandra Lustrati, presented the Digital Development Strategy 2024-2030 to the Nigerian delegation and highlighted the importance of supporting best practices in the digital transformation of government, to ensure digital services are accessible, open, and citizen-driven, within a safe and secure digital environment
