The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said data localisation is no longer merely a technical regulatory requirement but a fundamental pillar of national economic security and digital sovereignty.

The apex bank has therefore rallied financial, fintech and payment sector players to ensure compliance with its directive, insisting that the January 1, 2027 deadline remains sacrosanct.

By insisting on full compliance without further extensions, the CBN said it aimed to catalyse local infrastructure investment and drive demand for domestic data centres, technology talent and cloud service providers.

The apex bank advised affected institutions to immediately commence data migration and localisation, if they had not already done so, to meet the deadline.

The Director, Payments Systems Supervision Department, CBN, Dr Rakiya Opemi Yusuf, disclosed this in Lagos during her welcome address at the ‘CloudReady Nigeria Financial Services Roundtable’, organised by Africa Hyperscalers.

Yusuf, who was represented by the Assistant Director, Payments Systems Supervision Department, CBN, Babatunde Ajiboye, said the regulator’s task was to ensure the effective implementation of its directive on local storage and management of payment transaction data.

“Our task is to ensure proper implementation of the directive of the CBN for local data storage and management of payment transaction data into practical, reliable implementation. The CBN circular of June 15, 2026 requires payment transaction data generated within Nigeria to be stored and managed in Nigeria, with full compliance set for January 1, 2027,” she said.

Yusuf said: “The compliance date hasn’t changed. It is January 1, 2027. So, while you go about your implementation, you must know that it has to address the full data lifecycle from creation through processing and storage to eventual disposal.

“This calls for a complete data audit. The practical sequence is to audit and classify the data, agree on the local architecture and contracts, then mitigate, test and independently verify completion.”

The National Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), Dr Vincent Olatunji, stressed the need to protect Nigeria’s data hosted outside the country.

Olatunji, who was represented by the Head, Regulations Unit, NDPC, Ibukunoluwa Owa, said Africa accounted for less than one per cent of global data centres, describing the situation as economically unstable, unsustainable and strategically vulnerable.

“The Federal Government has established a clear national mandate under the National Digital Cloud Policy to transition Nigeria from being a primary consumer of global cloud infrastructure into a globally competitive hub for digital infrastructure, local skills and cloud exports,” he said.

Executive Director, Africa Hyperscalers, Temitope Osunrinde, said Nigeria had taken critical steps in recent years, particularly in the past few weeks, towards strengthening digital sovereignty through policies including the National Cloud Policy, National Sovereign Cloud Policy, Nigeria Data Protection Act and CBN regulations.