U.S.–Iran War Sparks Concerns Over Nigeria’s Reliance on Foreign Data Centres

Stakeholders in Nigeria’s cloud and digital infrastructure ecosystem have raised concerns that the ongoing U.S.–Iran conflict could expose vulnerabilities in the country’s digital economy, particularly due to its heavy reliance on overseas data centres.

While the immediate impact of the geopolitical tensions has been reflected in rising global oil prices and fuel costs locally, experts say a potentially greater risk lies in attacks targeting digital infrastructure such as hyperscale data centres.

Many of the platforms powering Nigeria’s digital economy — including fintech services, enterprise applications, and digital content platforms — rely heavily on foreign cloud infrastructure located across Europe, the United States, and the Middle East.

Industry analysts warn that any disruption to these facilities could trigger widespread service outages affecting millions of Nigerian users.

What stakeholders are saying

Speaking with Nairametrics, Lagos-based cloud security engineer Jude Arinze said attacks on overseas facilities hosting Nigerian data could significantly disrupt digital services in the country.

According to him, disruptions in major cloud infrastructure can quickly cascade across multiple digital platforms.

“An attack on facilities hosting Nigerian data could disrupt a wide range of services that people depend on daily — from banking apps and ride-hailing services to e-commerce platforms,” he said.

He noted that modern digital services rely on interconnected cloud infrastructure, meaning outages at major hyperscale data centres can affect multiple applications simultaneously.

Call for stronger local infrastructure

The Director of Africa Hyperscalers, Temitope Osunrinde, said the situation highlights the need for Nigeria to accelerate investment in domestic digital infrastructure.

According to him, geopolitical tensions affecting global data centres should serve as a wake-up call for countries whose digital ecosystems rely heavily on foreign hosting infrastructure.

“If geopolitical tensions can expose critical digital infrastructure abroad, it reinforces the need for countries like Nigeria to expand local data centre capacity and strengthen interconnection networks,” he said.

He added that hosting critical national data locally — either as primary infrastructure or as backup to foreign cloud facilities — would significantly improve resilience.

Osunrinde noted that a significant portion of Nigerian digital data, including financial transactions, enterprise workloads, and government records, is still processed or stored outside the country.

“This conflict underscores why digital infrastructure should not be treated purely as a technology issue but as a matter of economic resilience and national strategy,” he said.

Local hosting still limited

The Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), Mohammed Rudman, also highlighted Nigeria’s low level of local content hosting despite improvements in internet infrastructure.

According to Rudman, Nigeria currently hosts only 22% of the top 1,000 websites accessed by local users, compared with Africa’s average of 34%.

He also revealed that even among websites using Nigerian domain names such as .ng, roughly 80% are hosted on servers located outside the country.

“Even major Nigerian platforms and media organisations host their services abroad despite serving primarily domestic audiences,” Rudman said.

However, he noted that Nigeria has made significant progress in internet traffic domestication, with between 60% and 70% of local internet traffic now exchanged within the country.

This represents a major improvement from earlier years when most Nigerian internet traffic had to pass through servers in Europe or the United States before reaching local users.

Nigeria’s digital economy has expanded rapidly over the past decade, driven by the growth of fintech platforms, e-commerce, digital media, and cloud-based enterprise services.

However, the country’s dependence on overseas digital infrastructure means global disruptions — including geopolitical conflicts, cyberattacks, or technical failures — could have ripple effects across critical services.

Experts say strengthening Nigeria’s domestic data centre ecosystem will be essential for improving the resilience of the country’s growing digital economy.

Nairametrics