Top-tier C-suite leaders converged in Lagos to discuss how to unify Identity, Data Governance, and Artificial Intelligence to build a secure, compliant, and resilient digital Nigeria.
The security and digital landscape of Nigeria took center stage as top-tier C-suite leaders converged in Lagos for the exclusive CxOTrail CISO Leaders Forum 2025, hosted by SHAHPER Media and CxOTrail. The theme, Trust Anchored in Identity and Data Powered by AI, set the tone for a strategic dialogue on building secure, compliant, and resilient Nigerian enterprises.
The day kicked off with a powerful welcome address by Anabel Emekene, Editor at SHAHPER Media. She underscored that in the era of the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA), security and compliance are no longer cost centers, but non-negotiable business imperatives and the pillars of digital trust, and she emphasized that Data is the New Oil, and Identity is the New Perimeter. Delegates were tasked to move past the fear of fines and into a state of proactive governance, concerning NDPA readiness. Highlighting AI as both the adversary’s weapon and the defender’s indispensable tool.
The momentum continued with a compelling keynote speech by Mrs. Joy Omoruku, CISO Airtel Nigeria. Her message was clear: The CISO of 2026 must be an AI-enabled strategic risk predictor, not just a passive recipient of alerts. In a Zero Trust world, Mrs. Omoruku stressed that identity is the final, undisputed point of control, and its compromise leads to the collapse of the security model. She urged CISOs to prioritize AI-driven solutions for Threat Intelligence, Detection, and Response to drastically reduce dwell time and automate incident triage. A key takeaway was the need for AI to analyze data usage patterns, enforce policies, and automatically correct misconfigurations across complex cloud environments, a task humans cannot manage at scale.
Delegates were presented with strategic insights on managing the expanding attack surface. The presentation from Trend Micro by Mr. Adedayo Ojediran highlighted the complexity and scale of modern cyber risk, noting concerning statistics like 70% of organizations compromised via an unknown, unmanaged, or poorly managed internet-facing asset, the massive growth in SaaS applications, and cloud-native services.
Trend Micro’s solution focused on Cyber Risk Exposure Management (CREM), emphasizing a unified platform to discover, quantify, prioritize, and mitigate risk across the entire attack surface, from Cloud (CSPM) and Identity (ISPM) to Data (DSPM) and SaaS (SSPM).
Moderated by Mr. Philip Aiwekhoe, CISO and DPO NPF Micro Finance Bank, with panelists Mr. Martin Igwe, CISO & DPO Globus Bank, and Mr. John Mago, CISO Sterling Bank, this session zeroed in on the technical and operational reality of Identity and Access Management (IAM). The discussion revolved around moving past static sign-ons to implementing Adaptive Authentication that assesses risk in real-time. A central theme was that Identity Governance is inextricably linked to Data Governance, ensuring the IAM system controls what data an identity can touch.
Following a brief coffee break, the forum returned to tackle the critical subject of compliance. Moderated by Mr. Nurudeen Popoola, Head, IT Digital Innovation, IMG Nigeria, this panel featured Mr. Oludare Oshodi, Group CISO Mutual Benefit Assurance, and keynote speaker Mrs. Joy Omoruku, CISO Airtel Nigeria. The conversation provided practical steps for NDPA readiness, focusing on proactive governance, data sovereignty, and the ethical use of AI. The panelists stressed that responsible data use requires not just technical controls, but also a culture of governance that fosters consumer and international confidence.
The CxOTrail CISO Leaders Forum 2025 was a pivotal gathering, forging strategic partnerships and equipping C-suite leaders with the intelligence needed for a secure 2026 and beyond. The unified message across all sessions was a commitment to moving from a posture of reaction to one of proactive, anchored, and intelligent trust, built upon the three essential threads: Identity, Data, and AI.
The future of digital Nigeria depends on this unity, and the leaders in this room are truly the architects of that secure future.
