Not a lot of Nigerian companies can boast of local data hosting. Though there are Tier III data centres in Nigeria like Main One data and Rack Centre, Nigeria still loses no less than ₦60bn annually to hosting websites abroad.
Patronizing data centres in Nigeria is very expensive at the moment and that can be linked to the expenses incurred by data centre owners to provide the required infrastructure that the government should have made available. Overlooking the infrastructural challenges like power and stable internet access, enforcing local hosting of data will help improve the economy and provide job opportunities for skilled individuals.
During a visit to Rack Center in Lagos, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, reportedly said that once Nigerian data centers have enough capacity locally to handle data generated within the country, the Nigerian government will put a stop to its data being hosted abroad.
HMC and media team arrive for inspection of energy efficient and secure data centre space @RackCentre Oregun, Lagos. pic.twitter.com/WCjHA3Q7g7
— Dr Adebayo Shittu (@HMAdebayoShittu) April 11, 2016
While speaking, the Minister said if the local capacity could be met, the government would compel Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to host locally.
This development will require the implementation of local content policy to encourage the use of data centres within the country and the Federal Government will also need to provide an enabling environment thereby help reduce the cost of using local data centres.
So far it seems the Federal Government through the Ministry of Communications desires to support local alternatives as much as possible, but I must say at this point it will take a while for the impact to be felt amongst SMEs who need affordable means of storing data locally.
