Again, Nigeria’s Active Domain Name Slide from 178,739 in March to 177,453 in April

Emma Okonji

In the last one year, Nigeria has continued to experience a slide in its active .ng domain name, which is Nigeria’s identity in cyberspace.

The recent statistics on .ng domain name, released by the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA), the body in charge of managing Nigeria’s country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), showed a further slide in .ng domain name registration, renewal and restoration in the second quarter of 2022. 

According to the statistics, which THISDAY obtained from NiRA’s website, the total active .ng domain name, slide from 178,739 in March 2022 to 177,453 in April 2022. 

According to the figures released by NiRA, the total active domain name in the country, decreased from 180,763 domains in March 2021, to 178,739 domains in March 2022, with a further deep to 177,453 in April 2022, which is the latest report from NIRA on .ng domain name.

Analysing the figures in domain name registration, renewal and restoration, the President of NiRA, Mr. Mohammed Rudman, told THISDAY that the slide in the active number of third level domain name, was as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, which he said, could not allow most organisations who had hitherto purchased the third level domain name, to put them to effective use.

“In 2020, we experienced an increase in the number of registration for country code Top Level Domain Name (ccTLD) but in 2021, the number of registration dropped because of the effect of COVID-19 pandemic. The issue is that all those that registered in 2020, could not use the domain name in that same 2020 because of the pandemic and as such, they did not renew their registration in 2021 and new registration also dropped in 2021 for ccTLD,” Rudman said.

Giving more details of .ng domain name registration and renewal at NIRA’s 14th Annual General Meeting, which held in Lagos, recently, Rudman said some new registrars were accredited and that the Association would continue to acknowledge the efforts of all her accredited Registrars as well as their Resellers, for NiRA’s success. The President added that NiRA has been working with critical stakeholders including government institutions such as the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), to ensure improved .ng domain name brand awareness, adoption and support.

According to Rudman, “Following NITDA’s readiness to compel the adoption of Nigeria’s country-code top-level domain name, especially among ministries departments and agencies (MDAs), a 14-man enforcement committee has been inaugurated to properly monitor its implementation.”

NITDA had said that in line with the policy of the nation’s digital economy, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the National Second-Level Domain Policy on February 16, 2022, making it mandatory for all government-owned websites and official email correspondence of all government personnel to comply. Stressing the role of the agency, Rudman said it has been mandated by the NITDA enabling Act 2007, to manage and administer Nigeria’s ccTLD (.ng), which gives NITDA the authority to allocate and administer the Nigerian Government Second-Level domains on .gov.ng; .edu.ng; .mil.ng; .sch.ng and any other second-level domain name that may be approved in the future.

“The new policy is expected to drastically enhance public confidence in the authenticity and security of information and other services accessed from government-owned websites. Recording the level of compliance of the new policy by the state and federal ministries and agencies, 99 per cent of federal MDAs have transited to the .ng domain and have maintained compliance with the Nigeria ccTLD scheme. This is not the same at the state and local government levels, where 80 per cent of administration websites and email addresses lack the .ng validation. The implication of this non-compliance by the state MDAs and private businesses hinders the Nigerian government’s identity, security, and global recognition on the internet,” Rudman said.