NiRA presents .ng’s 50,000-in-50 days offer to NITDA

THE Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) has formally presented its 2011 programme to the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

Top on the agenda is the 50,000 free domains for 50 days which is currently on offer by the organisation and the need to properly manage the .gov.ng.

It must be recalled that NIRA is directly supervised by NITDA, which has been on top of .ng governance and development since the creation of the nation’s country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) over 16 years ago.

Speaking at the session, NIRA President, Mrs. Mary Uduma said that the association aimed to achieve its goal of registering 250,000 before end of 2011, which is likely to pave the way for its overtaking other countries on the continent on ccTLD.

“Our aim is to overtake all other African countries on domain name,” she said optimistically.

Mrs. Uduma told NITDA leadership led by the agency Director-General, Prof. Cleopas Angaye, that NIRA was not unaware of the challenges emanating from renewal of registered domain names, but expressed hope that with the sensitization of the Nigerian populace supported by NITDA, 250,000 domains as project it would come to pass.

She also told the session of the determination of her leadership to restructure the association as a world class community charged with management of the country code Top Level Domain .ng.

To this end, she said the capacity building of the leadership is paramount to the development of the association, which has commenced with the appointment of a chief operating officer (COO), in the person of Mr. Sola Bickersteth.

All this, she said, aim at efficiently managing the ccTLD and gov.ng particularly meant for the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the government.

In his response, DG NITDA, Prof. Angaye promised to continue to support programmes of NIRA, especially that those that would give a boost to .ng penetration.

He also urged NIRA leadership to continue to be steadfast in their drive to take the .ng crusade to the next level.

NITDA as the supervisory agency of NIRA, Angaye said, has the federal government support to ensure that .ng get the required attention in lives of Nigerian.

Noteworthy is that in accordance with the global internet coordinating agency, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a request was received for the redelegation of the .NG top-level domain on 15 January 2008.

The .NG domain name is designated in the ISO 3166-1 standard for Nigeria with a population of over 150 million people.

The .NG top-level domain was initially delegated in 1995 to then, Ms Iyabo Odusote of the Yaba College of Technology, while it was being technically managed by Instituto per le Applicazioni Telematiche (IAT) based in Italy, and was later transferred and executed by Mr. Randy Bush in the United States.

In 2004, ICANN redelegated the .NG top-level domain to the National Information Technical Development Agency (NITDA), a national governmental agency, with the eventual conclusion being that the proposed redelegation appeals for the “Nigeria Internet Registration Association” to be designated as the Sponsoring Organisation for the .NG top-level domain.

Some members of NIRA Executive board of directors who graced the meeting included the Vice President, Mr. Sunday Folayan, chairman Establishment Committee, Mr. Sekiru Shehu, his counterparts in Communication and Publicity as well as Accreditation committees, Messrs Remmy Nweke and Biyi Oladipupo, respectively, in addition to the COO, Mr. Bickersteth.

Remmy Nweke:
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