Minister inaugurates N500m data centre to support Nigeria Stock Exchange

The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbannaya Onu, on Monday in Lagos inaugurated an N500m Tier 3 Data Centre to support the activities of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE).

Onu said that the centre had the potential to help the NSE compete favourably with some of best exchanges in the world, if performed well.

The minister said that the government’s effort had always been geared towards ensuring that the country stopped growing the economy in a particular direction, particularly from being a mono commodity-based.

He noted that the particular direction had made the nation to feel the effect of the changes in the oil market but assured that the government was ready to change from that direction.

There are collaborations, according to him with relevant establishments that can contribute to the success of the centre and to the development of the economy.

Onu disclosed that the government had engaged in relationships and interactions with research institutes through the Federal Ministry of Technology and Science to come up with researches that were market-driven to create more jobs and wealth.

He urged the NSE to consider listing of more the Small and Medium-scale Enterprises, which he attributed to be agents of growth in any economy.

The Chief Executive Officer of the NSE, Mr. Oscar Onyema, said the centre was a modular designed data centre with state-of-the-art facilities for vision monitoring activities, adding that the centre would help the eco-system that would want to co-locate with the hosting services to the exchange.

Onyema hinted that the centre would only focus on its constituency, primarily only on brokers activities but might later expand to quoted companies and others.