Nigeria is cementing its role as the continent’s cybersecurity powerhouse. At the conclusion of the TAG–Africa Cyber Programme (Phase 2) in Abuja, the UK Government confirmed that Nigeria emerged as the top-performing partner nation.
This milestone comes at a high-stakes moment for the country’s digital sovereignty, as the National Cybersecurity Coordination Centre (NCCC) moves to standardize how it protects critical national infrastructure.
The timing is equally political; the successful wrap-up of this training serves as a precursor to President Bola Tinubu’s upcoming State Visit to the UK, where a renewal of the UK–Nigeria Cyber Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is expected to be a flagship agenda item.
The Milestone: From “Reaction” to “Audit”
The NCCC isn’t just looking to patch bugs; it’s building a regulatory framework. This phase of the partnership, delivered by implementing partner TAG International, focused on high-level institutional capacity.
Key wins from the programme include:
- Elite Auditing: Four NCCC professionals are now among the first SIM3 certified cybersecurity auditors in Africa, a globally recognized maturity model for incident response teams.
- Intelligence Gathering: A fresh cohort of experts has been minted through the Certified Threat Intelligence Manager course.
- Policy Overhaul: The partnership completed a comprehensive review of the National Incident Response Plan and laid the groundwork for Nigeria’s National Digital Forensics Policies.
What This Signals
In a landscape where ransomeware attacks on African financial and energy infrastructure are becoming more sophisticated, “readiness” is the new currency.
“These milestones strengthen not only Nigeria’s cyber readiness but also the wider regional and global digital ecosystem,” said Salawu Sheriff, technical assistant to the National Coordinator at the NCCC.
For the UK, this is “tech diplomacy” in action. Mrs. Gill Lever OBE, British deputy high commissioner, described the partnership as a “testament to strength and strategic alignment,” signaling that the UK views Nigeria as its primary digital security anchor in West Africa.
Building a “Cyber Maturity” Framework
Beyond the certificates, the real value lies in the Cyber Maturity Frameworks. These are the “rulebooks” for protecting Nigeria’s Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII), the digital nervous system that keeps the lights on and the banks running.
By standardizing these frameworks now, the NCCC is preparing for a future where Nigerian digital forensics can hold up in international courts, and its incident response teams operate at the same level as their G7 counterparts.
The new shift
The focus now shifts from Abuja to London. As the UK–Nigeria Cyber MoU approaches its renewal date, expect the conversation to move toward deeper bilateral data-sharing and joint operations against cross-border cybercrime.
With President Tinubu set to visit the UK shortly, this “Gold Medal” performance in the Africa Cyber Programme provides the Nigerian delegation with significant leverage to demand more advanced technology transfers and deeper investments in the local tech ecosystem.
