By Emmanuel Elebeke
National Informa- tion Technology Development Agency, NITDA, has said its priority would be to cut down, to barest minimum, the over N60 billion the country loses in hosting data in foreign databases.
The Director General of the agency Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, said the agency, has made progress in the adoption and utilization of Information and Communications Technology, ICT, in both the public and private sectors of the economy, which should make local hosting of data and information inevitable.
He condemned what he referred to as the current practices of both public and private sector organizations hosting data offshore, despite having highly reliable Tier III Data Centers, certified by various international organizations.
He said such data centres guarantee almost 100% availability as well as multiple layers of security.
Pantami noted that hosting data locally, guarantees reduction in cost and capital flight, digital job creation, increased security, and increase in tax revenues thereby boosting the local economy.
He recalled that section 14.1 of the guidelines for Nigerian content development in ICT makes it mandatory for data and information management firms to “host government data locally within the country and shall not for any reason host any government data outside the country without an express approval from NITDA”.
He said it was against this backdrop that the agency has mandated all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as private sector organizations to patronize Nigerian Data Centers.
The Agency however, said it is working with local data hosting firms to set appropriate service level requirements and standards for data service provisioning.
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