Adebayo Shittu, Nigeria’s Minister for Communications said the country would in the next two years stop data hosting abroad.
If the government can pull this through, then it will be a big boost not just to big blue chip companies who need hosting services for tonnes of data streaming on their network per second, but SMEs and tech startups who are at the mercy of foreign hosting services.
At an official visit to Rack Centre, a new Tier lll data centre in Lagos, Shittu was emphatic on the government’s plan saying “the President will compel the Ministries, Departments and Agencies to host locally. As soon as we have capacity, all our data will be hosted within. We just have to be sure that we have capacity.”
From web hosting, cloud hosting, data storage, co-location services and database management. Nigerians are importing hosting services and paying millions of Dollars annually to foreign data centres for data hosting services. To make this possible, the government will be using the ‘local content policy’. He said the local content policy that says that for every data centre facility available in Nigeria, industries and government agencies must patronise them”.
If the government can show a proper road map and break down the requisite policies to back it up, more investors will put more money into building larger data centres. Nigeria already has MD-XI by Main One, Computer Warehouse Group [CWG:NL] and Rack Centre. Startups and SMEs would get cheaper hosting services from a local company and will not have to pay in dollars.
In the face of depleting foreign reserves, enacting a local content policy that reduces the demand for foreign currency is a right step in the right direction.
Featured image source: globaldots.com
