Performing data governance

Inside: Internet outages in Northern Ethiopia and Ghana; other infosec updates across Africa

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CybAfrique Media
October 03, 2026

CybAfriqué is a space for news and analysis on cyber, data, and information security on the African continent.

HIGHLIGHTS

Performing data governance

Ghana's President John Mahama's words calling the U.S. health compact "humiliating" have been making rounds. He affirms long-standing concerns that the deal violates data sovereignty and strips the national regulator of authority.

We covered this when Uganda signed a $2.3 billion framework on December 10, 2025. The deal gives Washington login-level access to national health information systems and commits Uganda to hand over pathogen specimens. A typical clause, for example, states that the data-sharing agreement is governed by U.S. federal law. Uganda's data protection office has no explicit oversight role. 

The specimen clause requires physical specimens and genetic sequence data within five days of detection, with no reciprocal benefits. In Kenya, a High Court judge suspended the agreement after petitioners argued it violated the constitutional right to privacy and the Data Protection, Digital Health and Health Acts. Kenya's Digital Health Act requires health data to be stored in Kenya.

This has made a lot of people ask, if it's such a bad deal, why have so many signed it? At least 35 countries have agreed to this deal, meant to replace USAID. Only about ten of these signees are non-African: Bolivia, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Tajikistan, plus the Philippines and Vietnam, per KFF. The list includes Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, and Rwanda, countries that have, in the past couple of years, tried to establish reputations as digitally sovereign and data-wise. 

The simple answer is that most countries try to look data-secure more than they try to actually be. Buzzwords such as cybersecurity, digital sovereignty, data rights, and privacy are perceived much more as means of revenue or scoring political points than actual concerns.

This reveals itself in many layers. For example, we have discussed extensively that an overwhelming amount of data centres built and promoted as means to data sovereignty are typically funded, built, and managed by Huawei, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and their partners, Chinese and American proxies who are seeking to increase influence and dependence on their tech stacks. Huawei-built centres are operating or underway in at least ten African countries, often packaged with financing from Chinese policy banks. South Africa is the only African country where Amazon, Microsoft and Google have built their own facilities, and Microsoft's Kenya data centre is a partnership with the UAE's G42.

Countries go after private companies for abusing data laws but conveniently ignore many present and existential cases of public offices doing the same. Nigeria's NDPC fined Fidelity Bank roughly 0.1% of its 2023 revenue. Digital IDs, despite proven attempt of inclusion, have also been found to drive corruption and embezzlement. Nigeria's ID contract with Sagem, worth $214 million, came with bribery accusations against seven people, including a sitting minister. The state kept working with IDEMIA afterwards. In the DRC, a $1.2 billion IDEMIA contract has produced IDs for few. Mozambique gave Laxton a $127 million no-bid voter registration contract. Liberia's ID rollout stalled over a $1.7 million debt to a vendor the World Bank had debarred. Data from these countries also show an overwhelming lack of enforcement of basic security and privacy standards. 

Ethiopia and Ghana experience internet outages

Parts of northern Ethiopia have experienced internet outages, caused by the conflict between the regional forces in northern Tigray and the Ethiopian National Army. The conflict began as smaller clashes in August but has escalated into seizures of airports and government positions. There is a complete outage of state-owned Ethio telecom, but private providers like Safaricom remain in operation, though slowly. 

Thomson Reuters have reported, citing diplomatic sources, that the outage was commanded by the regional force of Tigray to prevent the national forces from operating remote weapons. In northern Ghana, people have experienced slow internet performance following massive damage to terrestrial cable affecting three separate transmission routes. 

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