By Clifford Agugoesi, Editor-in-Chief

ICT and Digital Economy bigwigs, that graced the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) Technology Forum 2021, had a concensus that achieving 30 per cent growth in local cloud hosting by 2024 in Nigeria, is achievable.  Leading the pack of experts to arrive at this common ground, was the President, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) and Managing Director, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), Muhammed Rudman.  Rudman was the chair for the event and believes achieving the target on local cloud hosting by 2024, is not a tall order, afterall.

“Let me start by thanking the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) for organizing this event and for particularly adopting this year’s theme “Achieving 30 per cent Growth In Local Cloud Hosting By 2024” and inviting me, to chair it. As you are aware, I have been an advocate for Internet domestication since 2006, highlighting the importance of local hosting with every opportunity, especially at the various conferences and events, “ began Rudman.

“Over the years Internet exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) has played a crucial role in the localization of data hosting within the shores of Nigeria. The growth of local traffic at IXPN has been significant, from less than 1 per cent traffic in 2006 to about 60 per cent in 2020.  A report by Internet Society released in June 2020 with the title “Anchoring the African Internet Ecosystem: Lessons from Kenya and Nigeria’s Internet Exchange Point Growth” clearly demonstrated remarkable growth of local traffic by IXPN from 2012 when the initial study took place to the year 2020 when the report was updated. IXPN has grown the local traffic by over 40,000 per cent  (average of annual increase of 5,000%) while the cost saving increased 40 times within the span of 8 years to forty million USD( US$40,000,000 million) annually. Today, IXPN has over eighty (80) interconnected networks, which comprises of large content providers, International Carriers, Mobile Network Operators, Internet Service Providers and Educational Networks.

“We are not there yet, hence the need to sustain the sensitization! With NITRA now raising the flag higher and directed at achieving 30 per cent growth from the existing 60 per cent, over 80 per cent of Nigeria’s Internet traffic should be locally be accessible by 2024.”

Rudman explained that it must not be forgotten that Nigeria had the population to grow any business of its choice, stressing the need to focus and plan on how to develop the country’s  ICT infrastructure  and harness the assets in order to unlock the potential of its huge population.  He noted that data was the new oil, usually coined as “Data is the King”. “The reality is that data is the economic engine of the Internet. 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,” he said.

According to him, local hosting was critical for any country that wished to develop its internet infrastructure and empower its citizens as well as ensure national data sovereignty.  Rudman pointed out that the Nigerian government’s realization of the cloud localization brought about the National Cloud Computing Policy by NITDA in 2019, which is aimed at promoting the migration of National Data to local cloud with a goal of achieving 30 per cent by the end of 2024. According to the President of NiRA, 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) before giving a deep dive into the advantages of local cloud hosting.

Said Rudman: “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. It will also ensure business continuity as Nigeria is dependent on submarine cables when hosting internationally. These submarine cables are prone to damages by passing ships or due to natural disasters such as a Tsunamis which will definitely mean a disruption to information  flow.

Furthermore, hosting of content locally will help build and develop technical skills to manage data centres in the country. This, also, inadvertently, means the creation of more jobs for Nigerians and the growth of the technology and hosting industry in the nation.

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. Rather, the information and client data hosted abroad are now under the data privacy laws of the country where the data is being hosted. With local hosting, organisations and individuals are guaranteed of needed support at the right time, as barriers like time difference and language are no longer an issue.”

Rudman said he encouraged local hosting for Nigerian businesses as it was a step in the right direction to improve Nigeria’s economy. “We need to invest locally. Our business plans should be strategically focused and geared towards developing our country, Nigeria. To avoid exporting and re-importing our data, we need to host our data locally.  Let us all rise up, embrace the challenge and help develop Nigeria’s ICT ecosystem,” he said.

In his goodwill , President of Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria(ISPON), Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu, said  ISPON saw NITRA as an integral component of the technology ecosystem as partners as well as practitioners whose largely unsung efforts had been pivotal to the emergence of the industry being celebrated today as Africa’s most vibrant and fastest evolving technology ecosystem.

Mba-Uzoukwu  said the event was timely and  raised a puzzling question: “the housing estates that our friends are building against all odds in a super-challenging environment, will they be occupied by offshore tenants or ourselves? There are 11 data centres in Nigeria and the largest are expanding their capacity constantly in anticipation of a growing demand but currently the utilisation of capacity probably sits at below 30 per cent. With four certified Tier 3 Constructed Facilities in Nigeria and more on the way, the Africa data centre market is expected to cross US$3bn by 2025, growing at a CAGR over 12 per cent.

“This indicates that despite the forecasted growth in installed capacity, the patronage by way of utilisation does not match the expected levels.  Galaxy Backbone which is the only Uptime Institute Certified Tier 3 Data Centre in the public sector is currently estimated at 38 per cent capacity utilisation of its 2.5MW capacity (subject to verification). We must ask why.”

He alluded to a 2020 GSMA report highlighting that availability of internet services has not translated to adoption while there is no established correlation between broadband availability and indicators of innovation such as hubs and software companies  noting especially that  Aba, Enugu, Calabar, Benin and Jos  had limited broadband and predominantly 2.5G/3G networks yet hosted significant innovation activity.

“ISPON’s research indicates that this puzzling scenario is directly related to local software – local in the sense of being developed by Nigerians for Nigerians to solve Nigerian problems. While we have seen phenomenal growth in the fintech space, the vector and velocity for the evolution of Software Nigeria as a whole remains constrained by the extent to which the Digital Economy which is emerging is anchored on local innovation and local utilization,” stated Mba-Uzoukwu.

He went further: “The data centres performance is driven by users  who are large corporates and MNCs for whom data services are not taken lightly as they commit to long-term relationships on the basis of reliability especially High Availability which is indexed to global standards. In this context, Digital Transformation, especially in the public sector is critical pre-requisite.

Digital Transformation delivers joined-up government that enables the policy and process of governance to ride on top of IT infrastructure from broadband to software solution stacks. It also presents opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation to flourish as solution providers get work to do. For this dynamic to be accelerated and proliferated, it is difficult to over-estimate or emphasise the importance of the Local Cloud which must be the initial point of access for a broad-based digital adoption and transformation strategy in a rising tide that lifts all.

We often fail to recognise and prioritize this fundamental – perhaps it is an inconvenient truth? There is much to unpack in this but it will suffice to say that ISPON believes that the Software Nigeria and Data Nigeria are conjoined twins – separating the two is not only difficult but in this case, it is foolhardy because what we share is vital to the survival of each twin. Let us therefore proceed with this in mind!”

The keynote by the  Director-General of the National  Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi  was titled  How Nigeria Can Achieve 30% Growth In Local Cloud Hosting By 2024. He was represented at the event by Chioma Okey-Aguguo.

His intervention underscored  the criticality of data as a major factor of production but he explained that for data to be a source of wealth,  it needed to be secured adding not only its security but also its sovereignty.

As per Abdullahi, though cloud computing offered other services such as Infrastructure as a service, Platform as a service, Software as a service, one of the common cloud computing services was the hosting service.

Said he: “Cloud hosting provides the opportunities for 100 per cent resource utilization as resources are evenly distributed over several server and cost control due to elasticity of services where pricing depends on services consumption. You are 100 per cent in control.

Let us look at a few statistics. The big data analytics market is set to reach US$103 billion by 2023, In 2019, the big data market grew by 20 per cent.   In 2020, every person-generated 1.7 megabytes in just a second and Internet users generate about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day.  Organizations are investing in data and its management.”

It will be recalled that NITDA’s mandate is to regulate and develop the IT sector of Nigeria, an integral part of the economy and central to this mandate is securing local data both corporate and individual.

Abdullahi informed that NITDA had initiated several policies and programmes to ensuring data sovereignty and integrity. “We introduced the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation in 2019. The successes of the regulations are there for all to see. Also, we developed the Nigeria Cloud Computing Policy (NCCP) to promote “Cloud First” as a proposition to Federal Public Institutions (FPIs) and SMEs as an efficient way of acquiring and deploying computing resources for better and improved quality of digital services.

The role of the Government is to enable the environment for private and corporate bodies to invest in local hosting services, the building of more data centres and though subdued in his presentation, Abdullahi believes has not done badly on this.  “There has been a considerable increase in the number of cloud services providers in Nigeria. The big names are here, I don’t want to mention names of companies so that I would not be accused of bias as a regulator.

“NITDA applauds the initiative of NITRA for organizing this technology Forum. We are happy to be part of this year’s edition.  We expect more of this kind of activities and we are always willing to collaborate with stakeholders we are always willing to work with stakeholders to address their pain point to make sure we create enabling environment for cloud services to thrive in Nigeria.   We believe with strategic partnership and collaboration, our combined effort will enhance efficient and cheap cloud hosting in Nigeria to serve, therefore, as a model for other African countries to adopt,” Abdullahi said.

President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria(ATCON) Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani  also believes that 30 per cent local cloud hosting by 2024 is possible with all industry stakeholders collaborating.   “I see a big growth of the ICT industry based on the work that NITRA has done…,” he said.

The Vice President of NiRA and MD/CEO of WhoGoHost, who represented the President of NiRA at the event, Toba Obaniyi, while throwing his weight behind local hosting, explained that hosting outside of the country was a difficult task, but was happening because of multiple factors, including but not limited to low adoption of the Dot NG domain by individuals and corporates.  So far, 180,000 Dot NG domain have been activated but compared to the estimated 200 million population of the country and Internet penetration of 104.4 million as at January 2021, this figure remains a far cry.   On what NiRA was doing to ramp up this figure, as prompted by Cyber Era NG,  Obaniyi said it was collaborating with relevant agencies of government, particularly the Corporate Affairs Commission(CAC), among others, to ensure that Dot NG became a critical requirement in the registration of businesses in the country.

CEO of Vintage Confluence LLC, Precious Taire, represented by Principal Consultant, Kingdom Heritage Communications Company, Patrick Aigbokhan, was emphatic that 30 per cent local cloud hosting by 2024 was achievable.

He said: “It is my honor to be present at this prestigious industry forum where thankful industry stakeholders come together like this to brainstorm on the way forward on issues that bother on Cloud Hosting, which happens to be very paramount among so many crucial issues that need swift attention in the telecommunications sector of the nation.

The purpose of this gathering is nothing other than to ask a question that needs a rapid response. And the question is this; Is 30 per cent growth in local cloud hosting achievable by 2024? Yes, it is possible with all that our speakers have unraveled here, and with the strong pens in the hands of NITRA as the driver of the industry’s vehicle.”

To the MD/CEO of Rackcentre, Dr. Ayotunde Coker, cloud computing democratizes access to the internet.  He was positive the  target of 30 per cent local cloud hosting by 2024 was attainable, but stressed this cannot happen without growth in the software development sub sector.  “We are determined to make Nigeria the digital hub of West Africa,” he said.

MD/CEO of Cloudflex, Aderemi Adejumoh, in his intervention inbued with relevant statistics, believes 30 per cent local cloud hosting by 2021 is possible with the right conditions being put in place.  It is estimated that the Nigeria Cloud hosting market is worth between N50bn – 200bn Naira(US$100m – US$450m). More than 95 per cent of this, according to Adejumoh,  was with the Hyperscalers namely AWS, Azure & Google Cloud Platform, and hosted outside of Nigeria.

With the cloud market estimated to worth US$1.7bn by 2020 and growing fast  and South Africa , Kenya and Nigeria being the major cloud hubs in Africa, perhaps, this huge potentials, in his judgment,  reflect the opportunity that awaits.  With 95 per cent  of Nigeria’s data being abroad, the countrys’ regulators had no control or authority over the data, he said.

He went further  to list interventions, especially on the regulatory and policy fronts, to up the ante on local cloud hosting, similar to the Patriot act, Cloud Act and GDPR  that enabled Western governments have more control and authority over their data:

• CBN should have as part of its licensing agreement a commitment from the licensee that they will be hosted in Nigeria.
• NAICOM and Pencom can also play their part to ensure their regulations are not outside of Nigeria.

While welcoming attendees to the hybrid event, held at Citiheights Hotel, Ikeja,  Lagos, south west Nigeria, on Children’s Day, Chairman of NITRA, Chike Onwuegbuchi , stated that NITRA’s Technology Forum was a platform designed for stakeholders in the information and Communications Technology to discuss issues that would bring growth and development to the sector.

“This edition, we are looking at local cloud hosting- a very important aspect of technological development.

Cloud computing has been described as the greatest game changer since the creation of the internet and is one of the fastest growing areas of technology today. It can be simply defined as renting time on a computing infrastructure over the internet, rather than building your own from the ground up. In a way, it could be described as outsourcing your computer infrastructure.

Cloud computing offers scalability and reliability that cannot be matched by a single enterprise.

Today, we are talking of data protection. How can you protect data that is warehoused outside of our shores?

Local cloud hosting also helps to keep our local internet traffic local as local content providers host their content in-country.”

The event witnessed the unveiling of the maiden edition of Technology ECHO published by NITRA  by the DG of NITDA.