Daniel Ayantoye writes on how what must be a easy job, renewing a web site internet hosting subscription regionally, has grow to be a supply of frustration and monetary loss for Nigerian companies. As confidence in native suppliers erodes because of frequent downtime, information loss, poor buyer help and rising infrastructure prices, builders and organisations are more and more turning to international options that promise reliability, higher technical help and uninterrupted entry, a shift with far-reaching financial implications for enterprise continuity, digital innovation and the expansion of the digital financial system
When a web site developer, Chancery Giwa, renewed two websites in July this yr, he anticipated nothing greater than the routine course of that retains digital companies on-line and operating. What adopted as a substitute was a nightmare.
The primary web site went offline on August 13. The second adopted on August 24. Every time Giwa reached out to the internet hosting firm, HostNowNow, the response was the identical: Please be affected person.
“The websites by no means got here again,” he recalled. “I stored sending messages, and so they stored repeating the identical factor. Then they logged me out of my account and refused to refund my cash. August to September was very robust. These had been high-profile web sites. The purchasers had been on my neck. We had constructed these platforms for about eight years. Watching them collapse like that was painful.”
Giwa supplied screenshots of messages and cost receipts to help his claims.
In accordance with him, the disaster meant sleepless nights migrating content material to new servers, registering contemporary domains with one other internet hosting supplier and masking the prices from his personal pocket, as he couldn’t demand more cash from already livid purchasers. The injury went far past funds.
“I needed to change thenationalpilot.ng to thenationalpilot.com.ng for a well-liked newspaper, whereas highprofile.com.ng turned highprofilenews.com.ng. It affected me psychologically. I turned depressed. It additionally affected my purchasers as a result of they needed to rebuild the platforms’ feasibility from scratch.”
As of December 6, Giwa instructed our correspondent that he had not acquired any refund from HostNowNow, whereas the unique web sites remained inaccessible.
An identical expertise performed out at Triple F Media Seek the advice of and Publishing Firm, a media and IT agency.
The Managing Director, Deborah Odekola, alleged that the agency paid HostNowNow on October 1, 2025, to resume a church web site, www.peculiarministry.org, and a receipt was issued.
“We gave the shopper one week to ship,” she claimed. “However one week handed, and we couldn’t ship. The shopper started to stress us. Regardless of a number of guarantees and assurances from HostNowNow that they had been engaged on it, the location has not been accessible until now.”
Sunday PUNCH gathered that Triple F finally registered a brand new area and internet hosting plan with one other firm.
Nevertheless, as a result of the unique area title was nonetheless locked, the staff couldn’t use it and was compelled to vary the suffix from .org to .com.
The corporate stated it has since requested a refund from HostNowNow however has not acquired any optimistic response.
Checks on the three affected web sites between December 15 and 16, 2025, confirmed that each one had been nonetheless down and displaying the error message: “This web site can’t be reached.”
Essential spine
Web site internet hosting has grow to be a vital spine of Nigeria’s digital financial system, powering information platforms, church buildings, on-line shops, small companies and different skilled providers.
As extra Nigerians migrate operations on-line, native internet hosting corporations have positioned themselves as cheaper options to international suppliers, promising comfort, native help and simpler cost choices.
For builders and enterprise homeowners, renewing internet hosting subscriptions is supposed to be a routine job, one which ensures continuity, information safety and uninterrupted entry for customers.
Nevertheless, beneath this rising dependence lies a largely unregulated trade with weak client safety and restricted technical oversight.
Not like banks or telecommunications operators, internet hosting corporations function with minimal scrutiny, although their providers immediately have an effect on livelihoods.
When web sites go down, companies lose visibility, credibility and income, and in some instances, years of digital property.
Builders interviewed for this report pointed to a recurring set of issues: unexplained downtime, extended server outages, damaged or unresponsive help channels, locked accounts and domains, withheld refunds and, in some instances, complete information loss.
For a lot of, these experiences have grow to be sufficient motive to keep away from native internet hosting suppliers altogether.
“We’ve got misplaced belief in Nigerian internet hosting corporations. I don’t belief any Nigerian internet hosting firm once more,” stated Joshua Sunday, an online developer, in a phone interview with our correspondent.
He recounted engaged on a web based bookshop undertaking the place, regardless of cost, the web site didn’t go dwell through the shopper’s ebook launch.
“The shopper was already launching his ebook, and folks couldn’t entry the web site. It took a number of months earlier than the location appeared. Their telephone quantity wasn’t going by means of. Their social media pages had been silent. If they’d downtime, they need to have knowledgeable their clients. As an alternative, they collected cash and stored telling us to be affected person.”
One other developer, Olajire Gbolu, alleged that following repeated downtimes, a few of his web sites had been fully wiped, with clients later asking him to recreate their platforms from scratch.
He recalled an incident wherein a Nigerian internet hosting firm suffered a protracted outage that lasted almost two weeks, throughout which it stopped responding to clients’ enquiries.
“Once they finally got here again on-line, they instructed clients to begin rebuilding all the things,” Gbolu stated. “Think about operating a web site for 10 years and being instructed that all the things is gone and it’s important to begin over again. It was a bitter capsule to swallow.”
He lamented the absence of accountability in such conditions, noting that clients are sometimes left helpless when issues go mistaken.
Gbolu suggested anybody internet hosting with such corporations to continually monitor their web sites and preserve exterior backups, warning that providers will be withdrawn with out discover.
“As soon as your web site develops points and also you attempt to contact them, they only go mute. They behave as if there isn’t any authority that may maintain them accountable,” he added.
Shoppers on the receiving finish
Past builders, purchasers whose companies rely upon a secure on-line presence have borne the brunt of internet hosting failures.
One such shopper, Isiaq Babatunde, stated he misplaced a web site he had operated for about eight years after it was abruptly taken offline with out discover.
He defined that he solely turned conscious of the issue when he tried to publish a report.
“That was once I realised the location was down. I contacted the developer, and he instructed me the internet hosting firm had wiped the complete web site, together with all the information I had constructed since July 2017,” Babatunde lamented.
Pressured to begin afresh, the distraught shopper stated he needed to launch a brand new web site with a special tackle, a course of he described as each nerve-racking and irritating.
Equally, Oyedunmola Olakunle, former Normal Supervisor of Nationwide Telescope, a web based information platform, stated persistent service failures and eventual information loss from a platform’s internet hosting supplier crippled the organisation, leaving it with no alternative however to register a brand new enterprise title and relaunch on a contemporary platform.
He described the expertise as distressing, noting that frequent downtime had been a recurring drawback from the location’s early days.
“We may very well be getting ready to publish a report and all of the sudden uncover that the web site was offline. After we complained, it typically took a day or two earlier than the location got here again up,” Olakunle stated.
He added that the state of affairs worsened between 2024 and early 2025, when the platform went down once more.
“We assumed it was the standard outage, however after we adopted up, we had been instructed that another person had laid declare to the title. No particulars got. They only stated a grievance had been made, and that was the tip of it,” Olakunle defined.
Eroding belief
The disaster of unstable internet hosting providers is steadily eroding belief in Nigeria’s digital ecosystem, regardless of the speedy growth of web utilization and on-line companies.
Obtainable information present that Nigeria nonetheless hosts solely a small fraction of its personal web sites, a development largely pushed by persistent service failures, frequent downtime and weak buyer help from native internet hosting suppliers.
A 2017 HUB8 survey printed by IT Information Nigeria revealed that solely 2.3 per cent of .ng web sites had been hosted regionally, with most companies choosing international servers perceived to be extra dependable.
Even authorities companies mirrored this insecurity. By 2018, the Nigeria Web Registration Affiliation reported that about 70 per cent of presidency web sites had been hosted outdoors the nation, citing instability and poor service supply by native internet hosting corporations.
Mockingly, this lack of belief comes at a big financial value.
A 2020 report by the Web Trade Level of Nigeria estimated that native internet hosting saved the nation about N15bn yearly in worldwide bandwidth spending, highlighting the financial positive aspects Nigeria stands to make if confidence in native infrastructure improves.
As an alternative of elevated patronage, considerations over frequent service disruptions have pushed extra organisations offshore.
A 2023 Tech Graph report confirmed that information centre underutilisation stays a serious problem, with about 55 per cent of ministries, departments and companies nonetheless internet hosting their information outdoors Nigeria, regardless of current information localisation insurance policies. The report immediately linked this development to unstable internet hosting providers, which many establishments view as a threat to operations and information safety.
This mistrust persists at the same time as Nigeria’s information centre capability continues to develop.
The Nigeria Colocation Knowledge Centre Portfolio Evaluation Report 2025 signifies that put in capability is rising steadily and will develop many-fold by 2030 as new services come on stream.
Equally, a third-quarter 2025 market evaluation by Knowledge Centres Africa factors to a powerful pipeline of latest information centres and elevated funding, pushed by cloud adoption, fintech progress and increasing digital providers.
Nevertheless, capability progress has not translated into confidence, as utilisation stays low and companies proceed to “vote with their ft” by internet hosting offshore, in accordance with IT professional Segun Adewuyi.
The state of affairs is especially troubling given Nigeria’s sturdy information localisation framework, together with the Nigeria Knowledge Safety Regulation 2019, the Nigeria Knowledge Safety Act 2023, NITDA’s information safety pointers, NCC cloud internet hosting guidelines, CBN information localisation directives and the Nationwide Cybersecurity Coverage.
These laws are designed to maintain delicate information inside the nation and strengthen digital sovereignty. As an alternative, unstable internet hosting providers are undermining these efforts, contributing to enterprise disruptions, capital flight and a rising lack of belief in native suppliers.
“Till reliability, uptime, and buyer help enhance, Nigeria’s internet hosting corporations could proceed to lose relevance,” Adewuyi stated.
Excessive infrastructure prices hurting internet hosting companies – NiRA president
Amid rising considerations, the President of the Nigeria Web Registration Affiliation, Adesola Akinsanya, stated deeper structural challenges, notably rising infrastructure prices, are straining the trade.
He stated the price of operating information centres has risen sharply prior to now two years, pushed by increased electrical energy tariffs, hovering diesel costs and escalating operational bills.
In accordance with him, powering information centres has grow to be more and more costly, forcing many suppliers to wrestle to interrupt even, with the burden typically handed on to clients.
Akinsanya known as on the federal government to cut back the price of vital infrastructure that helps the digital financial system, noting that top working bills inevitably have an effect on service pricing.
He defined that whereas a number of internet hosting corporations in Nigeria function effectively, dependable and high quality providers don’t come low-cost, elevating the query of whether or not clients are in a position and prepared to pay for reliable internet hosting.
The NiRA president additionally urged builders and companies to train warning when deciding on internet hosting suppliers.
He suggested clients to conduct correct due diligence by asking questions, checking on-line opinions, and thoroughly studying phrases and circumstances earlier than making funds.
Akinsanya famous that many disputes come up from a lack of awareness of service agreements, including that whereas some complaints are real, technical failures reminiscent of server downtime can happen.
In such conditions, he stated, internet hosting corporations have a accountability to promptly inform purchasers, apologise, and clearly clarify the reason for the disruption.
Worrisome public opinions
A examine of public complaints posted on Trustpilot, a web based assessment platform, revealed a combined image of native internet hosting corporations.
Whereas some opinions awarded 5 stars and praised the providers of some internet hosting platforms, others uncovered a troubling sample of dissatisfaction.
One reviewer, Ndu Levi, wrote this a couple of specific platform: “The worst internet hosting supplier. I nearly misplaced all my purchasers due to this firm. The worst of all of it is that their help service by no means responds to tickets or messages.”
One other reviewer, Johnkennedy Nnawuihe, stated that instantly he paid for a selected area, the host went offline, describing the expertise as “a rip-off”.
Carno Alejo, on his half, wrote: “This web site is a rip-off. They cost you cash upfront after which droop your web site. I employed the service a month in the past. To begin with, it labored very slowly; their servers are excessively sluggish. I paid for one month, about 4 {dollars}. Not even 15 days handed earlier than they charged me for 2 extra months. Once I complained, they stated it was a system problem and promised to credit score me. The following day, they suspended my web site, claiming I exceeded storage limits regardless of promoting limitless storage. They stole my cash.”
In one other assessment posted on April 5, 2025, Joshua Okodugha wrote:
“Horrible service, poor buyer help and poor technical help. Low cost internet hosting and area plans that can frustrate you and even delete your total work with out backup. There must be zero or minus 5 stars for this type of firm.”
In its response to Okodugha’s assessment, the internet hosting firm apologised however acknowledged that he now not had any lively service with it.
It additionally alleged that his earlier internet hosting account had been used for spam-related actions, which violated its Acceptable Use Coverage.
It added: “It is very important make clear that we didn’t delete your web site or information. You personally requested the cancellation of your internet hosting service, and it was processed accordingly.”
Equally, Paul John, in a Trustpilot assessment posted on March 26, 2025, expressed frustration over two internet hosting corporations, alleging that five-star opinions had been posted by pals of the companies.
“They’re pure scammers. They promote what they don’t supply. Their IP is blacklisted. You purchase a site, and it’s by no means registered. Buyer help is sluggish to reply. I hardly drop opinions, however for me to jot down this, folks ought to know to keep away from them.”
Of their responses, the 2 internet hosting corporations denied the allegations, noting that the complaints “don’t mirror a real expertise” and reiterating their accessible help channels.
They maintained that data confirmed the shopper had requested cancellation and that the hosted web site violated anti-spam guidelines.
These rebuttals underscore the murky house between real service failures, misunderstandings and alleged misconduct.
Reactions
A assessment of a internet hosting web site, Naijawebhost’s Fb web page, confirmed that its final put up, dated July 22, 2024, introduced that the corporate had formally merged with a South Africa-based internet hosting agency, HostAfrica.
Talking to Sunday PUNCH, the Chief Government Officer and founding father of Naijawebhost, Dennis Zaman, confirmed that the corporate was bought about two years in the past to the South African agency.
He stated the choice was largely pushed by persistent challenges linked to cybercriminal actions carried out on the corporate’s servers.
Zaman disclosed that he personally shut down greater than 100 web sites linked to scamming operations.
“Though we despatched emails to clients, not all of them acquired them, which is why some had been unaware of the acquisition. We additionally posted notices on our social media platforms weeks earlier than the sale,” he stated.
In accordance with him, clients got about 60 days to again up and migrate their web sites. Internet hosting providers, he added, continued on the outdated servers for about three to 4 months earlier than the brand new homeowners migrated operations to their very own infrastructure.
Zaman acknowledged complaints about poor customer support, explaining that the corporate operated solely two help channels, whereas its social media platforms had been primarily used for publications and commercials.
He stated cybercrime remained the largest problem the corporate confronted earlier than it was bought, noting that the information centres used had been positioned in Germany and incessantly issued fraud alerts.
“There have been days I personally took down over 100 web sites getting used for scamming,” he stated.
“One month you might be paying about N800,000 for server upkeep, the subsequent month it jumps to N2m. It was discouraging,” he added, noting that electrical energy prices and unstable energy provide additional strained operations.
Explaining downtime incidents, Zaman stated servers had been typically shut down by information centres when there was a surge in scam-related actions.
Affected clients to be refunded – HostNowNow
Reacting to the allegations levelled in opposition to it, HostNowNow’s Senior Technical Officer, Kemi Oladeji, in a WhatsApp name with our correspondent on Thursday, attributed the complaints raised by clients to inside operational challenges that affected the corporate’s response time.
“Based mostly on the 2 experiences, we had some points that affected our response time. Principally, our techniques are automated, however due to these points, we needed to change to guide processes. I’ve seen the title Giwa earlier than, and there was communication. However the different particular person, due to the guide course of, we’ve got not gotten to him but. I suppose he acquired impatient, which is comprehensible, after which it escalated. However we’re working to resolve it as quickly as attainable,” she stated.
Oladeji assured that the affected clients could be refunded and issued formal letters of apology.
“We are going to make refunds and ship them emails apologising. I do know the apology could not absolutely treatment the state of affairs, however we are going to attain out to them and clarify why there was no response. Whether it is nonetheless attainable to amend it, which I’m very hopeful about, we are going to go forward with the area in the event that they nonetheless need it,” she added.
Additionally talking, a supervisory officer at HostNowNow, Mrs Bosede Obasa, acknowledged the frustration skilled by clients however maintained that the incident was not reflective of the corporate’s observe document.
“We really feel the damage and ache of the purchasers, however this model has been in existence for 10 years. That is the primary time we’ve got had this type of problem. If we had been that dangerous, points like this could have come up a very long time in the past,” she stated.
In accordance with her, the issue stemmed from backend challenges, stressing that clients shouldn’t be left ready indefinitely.
“It’s one thing we’ve got been battling on the backend, however our clients shouldn’t have to attend indefinitely. Regardless of the clients need, we’re prepared to carry their temporary and tackle their considerations,” Obasa stated.
Development damning for the financial system – Specialists
An economist, Professor Sheriffdeen Tella, warned that the rising reliance on international internet hosting providers poses critical dangers to Nigeria’s financial system, notably by means of elevated international trade losses.
He defined that the extra companies rely upon offshore internet hosting, the extra international forex flows in a foreign country, worsening stress on the already fragile foreign exchange market.
In accordance with him, funds that ought to help native infrastructure and job creation as a substitute find yourself benefiting international companies.
Tella known as for intervention by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Expertise, urging stronger regulation, enforcement and help for native digital infrastructure.
“If there’s extra international internet hosting, which means extra international trade loss. There’s a clear want for presidency intervention,” he stated.
A tech professional, Bayo Adekunle, additionally warned that except infrastructure challenges are addressed, the sector will proceed to wrestle.
He attributed most of the issues to poor infrastructure, weak enforcement of pointers and purchasers’ reluctance to pay the true value of ordinary internet hosting providers.
“There isn’t any fixed energy provide right here, and constructing the required infrastructure is dear. Servers want uninterrupted electrical energy. Many purchasers need low-cost internet hosting, and low-cost internet hosting typically results in downtime and information loss,” Adekunle stated.
He urged the federal government to offer an enabling surroundings, noting that the sector has important potential to contribute to the financial system if correctly supported.
‘Service not delivered after cost punishable by legislation’
A authorized practitioner, Simon Nwangwa, stated service suppliers who gather cost and fail to ship as agreed are liable below the legislation.
He defined that going silent after receiving cost, with out rendering the agreed service or issuing a refund, suggests a deliberate act and a troubling sample of conduct.
Nwangwa stated that the place events agree for a service to be delivered inside a particular interval, failure to satisfy that obligation quantities to a breach of contract.
“When you have got an settlement for a service inside a particular interval, and also you fail to ship inside the stipulated time, it’s a breach of contract. When you enter right into a contract, you might be sure by its phrases and should adhere to the settlement,” he stated.
The lawyer added that affected clients are entitled to hunt authorized redress, noting that any particular person or firm discovered to have breached a contract will be sued and compelled by a courtroom to account for its actions.
Govt can’t management particular person internet hosting – NITDA spokesperson
On regulation, the Director of Company Communications and Media Relations on the Nationwide Info Expertise Growth Company, Mrs Hadiza Umar, stated the federal government lacks the ability to compel personal people or organisations to host their web sites regionally.
“The federal government can not power a person to host a web site in Nigeria if they don’t want to take action. Nevertheless, there are controls for presidency ministries, departments and companies. It’s obligatory for all MDAs to host their web sites in Nigeria, and such web sites should function below the .gov.ng area,” she stated.
Umar defined that the requirement is geared toward strengthening information sovereignty, bettering regulatory oversight and guaranteeing higher safety of presidency digital infrastructure.
