Uduma leads new NiRA executive

The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) has elected new executive at the weekend with the former vice president, Mrs. Mary Uduma elected unopposed as president, following the stepping down of other contenders to the post.

Also, the former executive board member, Mr. Sunday Folayan was elected into the vice president portfolio.

Other members of the newly constituted board of NiRA elected at the Annual General Meeting (AGM), last week in Lagos, include Messrs Muhammed Rudman, Sola Bickersteth, Remmy Nweke and Mrs. Yetunde Johnson; the Managing Director of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria Limited, Assistant General Manager of ChamsCity, Senior Reporter on ICT at Champion Newspapers and Network Administrator at Aluko & Oyebode, respectively.

Messrs Olayinka Bimbo, Shehu Sikiru and Biyi Oladipo who did not resign their positions from the board, were retained.

Currently, Mrs. Uduma, is a director at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in- charge of International Relations and has headed several departments of the Commission, including Corporate Planning and Research, Tariff & Charges as well as Finance.

Before joining NCC, Mrs. Uduma had worked with Deloitte and Touché, a public accounting firm in the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation, and at an investment bank, all in Nigeria. A member of the National Committee on the Implementation of the Outcome of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS); and also a member of an interim Board of Trustees for the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) responsible for the country code Top level domain name .ng.

Also, she had in the past served as coordinator of the Africa Regional Preparatory Meeting in 2005 for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s World Telecoms Development Conference.

A trained teacher, Mrs. Uduma is also a Chartered Accountant and holds B.Sc (Hons) in Accounting from the University of Lagos, and has worked with the Ministry of Education among others and was in May 2007, elected as the vice president of NiRA.

In her acceptance speech, after the inauguration of the new executive board of directors, the president, Mrs. Mary Uduma promised that the new team would work towards growing the adaptation of the nation’s country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), .ng.

She also requested the support of all stakeholders in the Internet community in the country to support them in order to make this tenure a successful one.

Previously in her address to the Annual General Meeting, Mrs. Uduma urged members to observe a minute silence in honour of the immediate past president, late Mr. Ndukwe Kalu, who died on September last year, following which the planned AGM was postponed till this year.

The electoral committee was made up of some members of NiRA’s board of trustees, namely the former President of Computer Registration Association of Nigeria (CPN), Prof. Mrs. Nike Osifisan, former president of Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Dr. Chris Nwannenna and editor, Technology Times, Mr. Shina Badaru.

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