<![CDATA[Purpose: This article examines how the borderless architecture of cyberspace is reshaping, rather than eliminating, the sovereign authority of states over digital territory, infrastructure, data and jurisdiction. Methodology: The study relies on a qualitative documentary approach that traces the evolution of international legal instruments, regional treaties, national statutes and institutional reports concerning cyber governance, cross-border data flows and cybercrime enforcement, with particular attention to African and Nigerian regulatory experience. Results: The analysis shows that formal legal sovereignty over digital space persists, yet its practical exercise is steadily constrained by jurisdictional overlap, reliance on privately owned infrastructure, attribution difficulties, cross-border data mobility and uneven treaty implementation. States that possess legislative authority frequently lack the enforcement capacity to translate that authority into effective control, producing a widening gap between formal and operative sovereignty. Conclusions: Cyber sovereignty should be reconceived as a cooperative and capacity-dependent condition rather than a fixed territorial entitlement, requiring states to combine domestic legal reform with international coordination, infrastructural resilience and rights-conscious regulation. Limitations: The study is confined to documentary and doctrinal materials and does not incorporate primary empirical data such as interviews with regulators or platform operators. Contributions: The article contributes a governance-oriented framework, termed adaptive digital sovereignty, that policymakers and scholars can apply to evaluate and strengthen state capacity across fragmented digital jurisdictions.]]>
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