Cloudflex MD, Adejumo advocates for hosting data locally
CloudFlex has harped on the need for Nigeria to host its data locally while providing a road map to achieve 30% levels by 2024.
The Managing Director of CloudFlex, Mr Aderemi Adejumo made this position known at the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) Forum with the theme “Achieving 30% Growth in Local Cloud Hosting by 2024”
Adejumo said that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should have as part of its licensing agreement a commitment from the licensees that they will be hosted in Nigeria.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of CloudFlex, these licensees under the CBN constitute 95% of the people who are hosting outside Nigeria.
He posited that the excuse that these people make is that there are no cloud platforms in Nigeria, which is not true.
He announced that CloudFlex is hosted locally here in Nigeria and operate with other competitors in Nigeria.
“We are indigenous, the best in Nigeria and Africa, and VmWare Cloud Verified,” he said.
He noted that even Rack Centre has been operating in Nigeria for about six years without a downtime and it has not been celebrated.
Adejumo said the Nigeria Cloud hosting market is worth between $100m – $450m (N50bn – 200bn Naira) as more than 95% of that is hosted outside of Nigeria.
According to him, the cloud market was worth $1.7bn by 2020 and growing fast, adding that South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria are the major cloud hubs in Africa.
He emphasized that the government should go beyond trying to persuade Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to host locally by stipulating a policy that demands that MDAs host locally, stressing that the current high level of offshore hosting is contributing to the pressure on the country’s foreign exchange.
He lamented that there are so much in Nigeria that are underutilized, stressing that if we utilize them, there will be growth.
“There are opportunities here, all we need to provide is the conductive environment for these things to flourish and create more awareness about cloud computing,” he said.
Adejumoh, added that a 30 per cent increase in local hosting would increase Nigeria’s revenue by between $30 million to $150 million (N15 billion – N75 billion).
“Development and advancement in technology and Cloud computing will accelerate Nigerians regional relevance and more importantly the leadership of Nigeria in the region and Africa at large,” Adejumoh said.