With the Central Bank of Nigeria’s January 1, 2027 deadline for the localisation of payment transaction data drawing closer, the Chief Executive Officer of Open Access Data Centre, Dr Ayotunde Coker, has said banks, fintechs and other payment operators have no reason to delay compliance, insisting that Nigeria already has the infrastructure needed to support the transition.
Coker made the position known during an interactive session with ICT editors, where he dismissed concerns that the country lacks sufficient data centre capacity to implement the CBN directive. According to him, high quality data centres across Nigeria are well equipped and are also expanding to meet rising demand.
He said there is no capacity challenge in the country’s top tier data centres, adding that operators already have expansion plans in place to accommodate more businesses as the deadline approaches. He urged financial institutions to focus on practical steps toward compliance instead of looking for reasons to postpone action.
The CBN, in a circular dated June 15, 2026, directed deposit money banks, microfinance banks, mobile money operators, switching companies, payment terminal service providers, payment solution service providers, super agents and other licensed payment operators to store and manage all payment transaction data generated within Nigeria on local servers.
The apex bank gave all affected institutions until January 1, 2027 to comply, warning that sanctions would be imposed on defaulters.
The directive has triggered concerns among some financial institutions, especially those that currently depend on foreign cloud infrastructure, over whether Nigeria’s data centre ecosystem has enough room to absorb the expected migration.
Coker, however, said those fears are overstated. He noted that the Nigerian data centre industry is in a period of rapid expansion, with projected investments expected to exceed 2 billion dollars by 2027.
According to him, OADC alone is committing 240 million dollars to the development of a 24 megawatt hyperscale data centre in Lekki. He added that other major operators, including Equinix, Rack Centre and Airtel’s Nxtra, are also expanding their facilities to meet future demand.
He further explained that Nigeria’s data centre market, estimated at 136.7 megawatts in 2025, is projected to grow to 279.4 megawatts by 2030, representing annual growth of more than 15 percent.
On available capacity, Coker said data centre operators currently have immediate rack space for clients, shell infrastructure that can be quickly fitted out and additional land already approved for future expansion. In his view, businesses that are ready to move can begin the process without delay.
He also advised financial institutions to begin implementation plans now rather than wait until the deadline is too close. If there are genuine difficulties, he said, such concerns should be backed with clear analysis and presented to the regulator rather than used as a general excuse for inaction.
Coker acknowledged that institutions currently running workloads on offshore platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure may face both technical and financial hurdles in moving to local infrastructure. Even so, he maintained that those challenges can be managed with proper planning and early preparation.
According to him, institutions need to carefully map out their migration plans, including whether they would need to move existing systems directly, acquire new equipment, manage equipment lead times or make adjustments to avoid service disruption during the transition.
He also pushed back against concerns that locally hosted data may be less secure, saying top end Nigerian data centres operate with physical security standards that match global benchmarks.
However, he clarified that while data centres are responsible for the security of physical infrastructure, the responsibility for protecting applications and customer data against cyber threats still rests with the banks, fintechs and other service providers using those facilities.
As the compliance deadline draws nearer, Coker said the conversation should no longer be about whether Nigeria is ready from an infrastructure standpoint, but about how quickly operators can execute their migration plans.
In his view, unless there are concrete and verifiable reasons for delay, financial institutions should move ahead and comply fully with the CBN’s directive.
