Nigeria has assumed control of the domain name, .ng, after a successful transfer was effected last week.
The Nigerian Internet Registration Association took over the responsibility for the local management of the internet name.
President of the internet association, Ndukwe Kalu, speaking in Lagos during the weekend, said “the landmark transition took place at exactly 4pm GMT May 13, 2009, with the historic handover of the country code top level domain (ccTLD) that will enable NIRA manage the domain name on behalf of the nation’s internet community.”
The decision was as a result of an approval by the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the body that administers the internet domain name system.
Mr. Kalu said “it is also a new dawn for Nigeria as the long sought .ng ccTLD re-delegation is achieved.”
He also said that “NIRA is moving forward with an ambitious vision to be among the top 20 domain names by 2011 driven by massive uptake of the names.”
The re-delegation makes the Nigeria Internet Registration Association, the sponsor and manager of the domain name, and brings the .ng as desired, for a greater participation by all stakeholders, both in the government and private sector.
According to the Internet World Statistics, Nigeria’s estimated 10 million users is second only to Egypt’s 10.5million as the continent explores new channels of opening up connectivity to the information super highway.
However, Africa accounts for 5.6 per cent of the internet penetration.
Nigeria’s quest for an internet domain identity started in 1995 with the first delegation. However, with the intervention of former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, in 2004, the Nigerian Internet community, represented by the G22, reached a consensus on a not-for-profit, all inclusive body to manage the .ng country code top level domain.
With the formation of the NIRA executive board in May 2007, the commencement of the re-delegation process and full localized management of the domain name started.
Mr. Kalu said that “the .ng domain name would be offering its domains in the ccTLD with the most robust technical infrastructure in Africa. It is the only ccTLD with multiple any-cast name servers offering local resolutions of .ng domain in over 40 cities in five continents with a 100 per cent uptime guarantee.”
He further said that “Nigeria is the second country in Africa to have a fully automated registry with full EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol) access, making it of global standard that allows registrars from all over the world to interact with it.”
This means that with the Nigerian registry, anyone can register a .ng in seconds and be sure that the name would always be available.
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