Mr Muhammed Rudman, Chief Executive Officer, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) has said that Nigeria needs to create more awareness to reach 30 per cent growth in local cloud hosting by 2024.
Rudman made the remark during the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) Forum 2021 which was held in Lagos.
The theme of the event was “Achieving 30 per cent growth in local cloud hosting by 2024”.
According to him, the country needed to strive harder so that over 80 per cent of Nigeria’s Internet traffic would be locally accessible by 2024.
“We need to always remember that Nigeria has the population to grow any business of its choice.
We need to focus and plan on how to develop our ICT infrastructure and harness the assets in order to unlock the potential of our huge population.
“With billions of US dollars invested annually across the globe towards cloud infrastructure by private and public entities, Nigeria must strive to become the hub for Internet content in Africa, not just content consumers,” Rudman said.
According to him, local hosting is critical for any country that wishes to develop its internet infrastructure and empower its citizens as well as ensure national data sovereignty.
Rudman noted that the Nigerian government realisation of the cloud localization brought about the National Cloud Computing Policy by NITDA in 2019.
He noted that the policy was aimed at promoting the migration of National Data to local cloud with a goal of achieving 30% by the end of 2024.
“Some years back, the Federal Government of Nigeria also set up Galaxy Backbone PLC, a company empowered to provide Internet and hosting services for government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
“Local hosting in Nigeria will reduce the huge capital flight. This reduction in capital flight will also lead to higher quality of service as local hosting enables websites run about three (3) times faster than those hosting overseas because of ultralow latency.
“Hosting of content locally will further strengthen the cyber security of the country, as the passing of data between local networks would be within our national borders, ” Rudman said.
He said itt would also ensure business continuity as Nigeria was dependent on submarine cables when hosting internationally.
Rudman added that the submarine cables were prone to damages by passing ships or due to natural disasters such as a Tsunamis which would definitely mean a disruption to information flow.
He said that hosting of content locally would also help build and develop technical skills to manage data centres in the country, adding that it would also create more jobs for Nigerians.
“It is imperative to host data locally to avoid the complexity of international laws. Once important information is being hosted outside the country, the laws of the land no longer apply.
“To avoid exporting and re-importing our data, we need to host our data locally, “he said.
Local cloud hosting also helps to keep our local internet traffic local as local content providers host their content in-country.
In addition, Mr Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu, the President, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), said that while phenomenal growth had been seen in the fintech space, the vector and velocity for the evolution of software in Nigeria as a whole remains constrained.
”The Tier 3 constructed facilities in Nigeria are still under utilized and adoption of connectivity is still very low. It is essential for us to build our local cloud.
“We have no option but to embrace local hosting because we need it not just for security but also for economic development,” he said.