How a power outage at MainOne data centre took Nigerian banks offline 

MainOne, the Equinix-owned broadband and storage company, suffered a one-hour power outage at its MDXi II data centre in Lekki on October 9, 2024, that took several Nigerian banks offline. The outage affected millions of customers who could not access banking services. One person familiar with the matter said at least three tier-1 banks were affected.

A faulty circuit breaker caused the power outage, one person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

With a power capacity of 600 kilowatts (kW) and a power density of 3.5 kW per rack, MDXi Lagos uses multiple power sources, including utility and diesel generators. 

This incident reflects MainOne’s influence in Nigeria’s broadband and data storage market. With a roll call of the biggest commercial banks and internet providers as clients, MainOne “is internet in Nigeria,” someone familiar with MainOne’s business told TechCabal. 

In March 2024, MainOne suffered a major fibre cut in Ghana that knocked many major Nigerian banks offline.

At least three chief technology officers (CTOs) of the affected banks visited the data centre on October 9 to inquire about the situation, one person with direct knowledge of the matter said. 

MainOne did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

One person familiar with the matter said MainOne has set up redundancy to avoid future reoccurrences. A data centre redundancy is the “use of duplicate components to keep operations uninterrupted if some components fail and maintain uptime during maintenance.”

For commercial banks who rely on MainOne as an internet provider, an outage of that nature affects their operations, especially online banking activities. At a time when most commercial banks are undergoing major technology changes that have affected millions of customers, a blackout at their internet service provider is a risk not worth having. Nigerian commercial banks operate in a low-trust environment and customers question their reliability whenever there is a service disruption.