OADC: CBN Directive on Local Data Hosting Will Protect Nigeria’s Data Sovereignty

Emma Okonji

The recent directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria, mandating financial institutions and Fintech companies to host their payment data locally in Nigeria, with effect from January 1, 2027, is a sure way of protecting Nigeria’s data sovereignty, aside boosting job creation, according to Open Access Data Centres (OADC).

Speaking about the infrastructure readiness of existing data centres in Nigeria to effectively accommodate and host all local data generated by financial institutions and Fintech companies without glitches, the Chief Executive Officer of OADC, Dr. Ayotunde Coker, who welcomed the development, said the directive would help to protect Nigeria’s data sovereignty, when all the sensitive data are hosted locally within Nigeria. 

He said the CBN directive was long expected because the existing data centres in Nigeria have robust data centre infrastructure and the capacity to host data locally in Nigeria.

“OADC has built a strong data centre infrastructure that will enable banks to become much more agile. We have reliable data centre infrastructure with high quality. In terms of quality of infrastructure, actual scale of infrastructure, OADC is building out phase two of its data centre to 24 megawatts of the normal hyperscale density that will accept some of the AI type specific needs for liquid-based cooling, with hybrid architecture that allows enterprise cloud and AI. The changes are bringing significant scale,” Coker said.

Confident that the existing data centres in Nigeria have the capacity to host data locally, Coker said the various data centres in Lagos have the capacity across cooling, power, expandable racks and scaling capacity.

“I’m confident that we have the data center capacity to meet that data sovereignty requirement, and the build-out trajectory that we have around the Lagos area is significant. South Africa has a significant build capacity, a good fill-up trajectory, and Nigeria is also bringing in build capacity for data centres,” Coker further said.