On May 13, 2009, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) completed the process of re-delegation of the .ng domain name from temporary authorities to the current Nigerian ones. For many years, Randy Bush has been the Technical contact of the .ng domain name. With the IANA re-delegation, the technical contact is now the local Nigerian DNS administrator, while the administrative contact is the president of Nigeria Internet Registration Association.
To speed up the process of registering .ng domain names, NIRA accredited a first batch of 29 Domain registrars, most of whom are Nigerian companies. Registrars are categorized into Platinum, Gold, Silver and Standard categories.
NiRA is the registry for .ng Internet Domain Names and maintains the database of names registered in the .ng country code Top Level Domain. NiRA is a self-regulating body and mangers of the .ng national resource. The country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) name space in the public interest of Nigeria and global internet communities.
NiRA has been in the forefront campaigning for the registration of domain names with the country's identity, and discouraging the use of foreign domain names. 'Dot ng' domain name is Nigeria's identity in the cyberspace; every country has its identity and must be identified as such when sending electronic mails through cyberspace, via the internet.
The cyberspace address of individuals or organisations in Nigeria should end with 'dot ng'. The identity simply identifies the organisation as a Nigerian organisation. Individuals can also have a personal domain names.
NiRA has identified low level of awareness as a factor militating against the 'dot ng' domain name registration in the country. According to NiRA, only about 100,000 domain names have been registered since the inception of the sales of domain names in 2008.
A proper management of Nigeria's internet resource, the 'dot ng' will boost the economy and enhance job creation. According to NiRA, the Nigeria has the potential to create over 50,000 jobs with the proper management of 'dot ng'; jobs would be created for the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) professionals in the fields of web designing, Software application and content developers. It also offers stable source of Foreign Currency for the economy.
In addition to the benefits of Nigerians adopting the 'dot ng', the online commerce, e-government Services, access to valuable information and knowledge would thrive, academics will also receive a boost through effective research resource and participation in distance learning programmes.
Rebranding Nigeria with .ng, If Nigeria's rebranding effort is to be effective, concrete steps must be taken to encourage the use of the local .ng domain name with the government, private companies and individuals migrating to the local domain. The reason for this is simple: anonymity fosters crime and a widespread adoption of the .ng domain name in email addresses and Nigerian websites will give the country a trusted, stable and authentic position and stake on the Internet.
The Nigeria rebranding effort must take root in the cyberspace. Emails sent by a Nigeria to another Nigerian living in Nigeria should no longer have to travel to the UK or US where the server is being hosted, before delivering such mail to the recipient in Nigeria.
Benefits of .ng
Using dot NG will enable organisations and individual to use domain names that are otherwise not available. For example, while it might be impossible (or uneconomical, due to high pricing) to purchase short and memorable names that had already been taken up by the early birds, it is now possible to have same using .ng.com or .org.ng as the case may be. The use of NG will easily identify a domain as belonging to a Nigerian business or entrepreneur.
Search engines may rank dot NG domains higher for subjects relating to Nigeria.
While those arguments sounds logical, only the first argument really holds ground. Even though this website is registered as .com, yet it is well identified as a Nigerian website because the content focuses on Nigerian Entrepreneurs and issues pertaining to Nigerians. Also, search engines will list Wikipedia first before any other website if it has sufficient content to cover an issue even if the issue is 100% Nigerian.
.ng and Cyber Security
NiRA at its sixth Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Lagos on recently, maintained that the .ng domain is as secured as others across the world.
President, NiRA, Mary Uduma, stated that the Federal Government has given August, 2014 deadline for all Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies to migrate to the .gov.ng domain name.
According to Uduma, all official email addresses ending in .gov.ng are much more secure than those addresses obtained from the freely available internet services.
Furthermore, she noted that most of the fraudulent mail traffics credited to Nigeria are actually not from the country but because there is no official domain and most of the MDAs use free domain, the email addresses could be easily hacked and used for fraudulent things.
According to her, if the traffic emanating from Nigeria were contained in the secured government domain of .gov.ng, the activities of the internet criminals could be reduced to the barest minimum, as it is safer, adding that as most of the offices are in unsecured domain it is thus difficult to defend any allegation against Nigeria on fraudulent internet activities.
Uduma hinted that that more than "40,000 .gov.ng email accounts have been created for all principal officers, permanent secretaries, heads of paratstatals, directors and other management staff of various MDAs and new easy to remember domain names being created. This will allow affairs of the site to be run more securely within the national domain space.
NiRA targets up to 250,000 domains hosting for the year 2013, but, according to Uduma "The Migration recorded was impressive as over 50% of the set target was achieved. She however noted that" The August deadline for all MDA to migratehas not changed."
Therefore, to guarantee secured platform on the .ng domain and security on the internet space, various international training programmes has been organised for Nigerians.
One of such training programmes is the Domain Name System Security Extension (DNSSEC) training for the internet body scheduled for Abuja later in the year.
As far as he is concerned, Acting Chief Operating Officer (COO) NiRA, Akinbo Adebunmi, said, the major priority of NIRA now, is to sensitise Nigerians on the importance of registering on the local domain name. "The .ng platform is as secured as any international platform, so we encourage all Nigerians to register their names, company or business names, emails and websites on the .ng. Since its introduction in April last year, the .ng has brought the recognition of the international body, Internet Corporation For Assigned Names And Numbers (ICANN).
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Emmanuel Okwuke
Quelle/Source: AllAfrica, 05.05.2014
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