Designing a Zero Trust Architecture Implementation Roadmap for Nigerian Federal Government Ministries

Zero Trust security architecture represents the current paradigm for enterprise cybersecurity, and designing an implementation roadmap adapted to the resource and regulatory constraints of Nigerian federal government ministries addresses a critical infrastructure security gap. This study designed a Zero Trust Architecture implementation roadmap for Nigerian federal government ministries, using three ministries in Abuja as reference environments: Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Education. A professional roadmap design methodology was applied, drawing on NIST SP 800-207 Zero Trust Architecture guidelines, review of current ministry network architectures through IT security manager consultations (n = 12), gap analysis against ZTA principles, and benchmarking against US Federal Government ZTA implementation guidance and UK NCSC Zero Trust network access guidance. Gap analysis revealed that implicit trust for internal network connections was present in all three ministries, micro-segmentation was absent in 100 percent, identity-based access control was partial in 66.7 percent, and continuous device health verification was implemented in 0 percent. The roadmap specifies a three-phase implementation across 18 months: identity and access management hardening (Phase 1), network micro-segmentation (Phase 2), and continuous monitoring and endpoint health verification (Phase 3). Cost estimates, technology requirements, and change management guidance are included. Expert review by eight ZTA and government IT security specialists confirmed the roadmap's technical soundness. The study recommends it be piloted in two ministries with formal security posture evaluation at 12 months.

Keywords: Zero Trust Architecture, federal government ministries, implementation roadmap, Abuja, identity and access management