Sola Akinsanya emerges NIRA President, Murtala Abdullahi VP, Oluka, Dare, Kehinde win - ITREALMS

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... Nweke, Odusote, Oladipo, Uduma, Ya'u join BoT

The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) has elected the Executive Director of Upperlink Limited, Mr. Adesola Akinsanya as president and Mr. Murtala Abdullahi as vice President, reports ITREALMS.

The duo took over from Mr. Muhammed Rudman, just as the Editor of TechEconomy, Mr. Peter Oluka, Mr. Ebenezer Dare of Hostlag Limited, and Seun Kehinde of QServers Networks Limited were elected to join the Executive Board of Directors at NIRA.

This is coming as NIRA equally at the 15th Annual General Meeting (AGM) cum election held Friday at The Zone in Lagos, elected five members of the Board of Trustees (BoT) including the Group Executive Editor and Lead Consulting Strategist, ITREALMS Media group, Mr. Remmy Nweke; the former pioneer technical contact person on .NG, Mrs Ibukun Odusote; former Financial Secretary of NIRA, Mr. Biyi Oladipo; Executive Director Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) Mr. Yunusa Zakari Ya'u and former NIRA president and coordinator, West African Internet Governance Forum (WAIGF), Mrs. Mary Uduma.

NIRA, ITREALMS gathered was founded on 23 March 2005 to oversee the Nigeria's country code top-level domain, .NG, just as registration of domain names are handled by NIRA certified registrars, under its Registry–Registrar–Registrant model in operating and managing the top-level domain.

ITREALMS recalls that Adesola Akinsanya is currently the Chief Operating Officer/Executive Director at Upperlink Limited. He also doubles as the Director of Upperlink Cloud subsidiary where he spearheads business and strategy for the company's cloud services.

He brings to bear several years of professional expertise, competence, and experience in the Information Technology industry with a focus on infrastructure and cloud services. He was part of the team which aided the accreditation of Upperlink Limited as the first Nigerian company to be accredited as Global Registrar by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 2014 and has led the Domain team to date.

He was also a member of the evaluation team which appraised the company on Level 3 for CMMI Assessment, ISO 27001, ISO23301, Data Protection Compliance Organization (DPCO), and PCI DSS certifications. He recently participated and completed the Standford Seed and African Management Institute sponsored Aspire Business growth (A 6 month intensive training program).

He has taken several courses on Domain Registry and Advanced Domain Registry Operation. He had attended several conferences including ICANN and AFRINIC within and outside Africa. He has been involved and participated in panel discussions organized by ICANN Africa, African Union and AFTLD both as a panelist and moderator in several fora such as the Africa Domain Name System Forum, Multistakeholder Internet Governance in Africa thereby contributing to the development and adoption of African CCTLDs.

In line with his passion for service, Adesola noted that he was a member of the team selected by Google that launched the GABO and GNBO initiatives. This helped to increase awareness and adoption of the .ng domain brand, even as he mentored young IT professionals during that period.

Adesola Akinsanya had his first degree in Engineering and holds a Postgraduate Degree in Computer Science from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and the University of Lagos respectively. He is a Chartered member of Computer Professionals (Registration Council of Nigeria) and a member of the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA). GLG council member. 

He was until this election a member of NIRA EBoD and belongs to several committee where he participated actively.

Akinsanya took over from Mr. Muhammed Rudman, the chief executive officer of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN).

Nkem Nweke/GEE