By Adeyemi Adepetun
08 May 2024 | 1:03 am
The adoption and usage of Nigeria’s .ng rose by 16.5 per cent in the last one year. According to data obtained from April 2023 and April 2024, adoption rose by 31,605, from 191, 215 to 222,820.
President of NiRA, Sola Akinsanya
• NiRA calls for adoption of made-in-Nigeria products
The adoption and usage of Nigeria’s .ng rose by 16.5 per cent in the last one year. According to data obtained from April 2023 and April 2024, adoption rose by 31,605, from 191, 215 to 222,820.
The data, which was segmented into registration, renewal, restoration and total, showed that as of February 2024, there were 8,254 registrations, 4,915 renewals with restoration of 120, which totaled 217, 527. In March, there were 8,102 registrations, 5,257 renewals, 127 restorations and 221,017 total .ng adoption.
For April, registration was 7, 292 while renewal stood at 5,328 and restoration, 128, bringing the total adoption to 222,820. The ccTLD .ng domain name is Nigeria’s identity in cyberspace, which has the .ng as the suffix of every official email address that originates from Nigeria. In the United Kingdom, all official email addresses end with .co.uk, in the United States of America, they end with .com/.usa, while in South Africa, official email addresses end with .co.za.
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control within the Internet protocol. The right to use a domain name is delegated by domain name registrars who are accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the international organisation charged with overseeing the name and number systems of the Internet.
The Guardian checks showed that the .ng is 0.000504353 of the world’s 365.5 million registered and functional ccTLD. This is despite the country’s over 220 million estimated population and more than 160 million Internet users.
In Nigeria, NiRA has carried out several campaigns to sensitise Nigerians on the need to populate .ng domain name. 18 years after its launch by NiRA, the expected traction for .ng is still low, owing to so many issues. There is still apathy from governments’ Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), which still adopt foreign domain names and subsequently increase capital flight out of the country.
As of last year, The Guardian’s check on the African region showed that South Africa, with a 60.4 million population, had 1.25 million registered and active .za and Kenya’s population put at 53.7 million, had 93,446 registered .ke.
Many factors have been adduced for the slow traction earned by .ng since its inception. These include Nigerians’ preference for foreign products, the high cost of the domain name and the unwillingness of some registered Nigerian businesses to move online.
The President of NiRA, Sola Akinsanya, in an interview with The Guardian on Monday, said the forex crisis is driving the adoption of the domain name in the country. Akinsanya explained that globally there has been a decline in domain name adoption and ccTLDs too are not equally spared, they are also affected.
“So, what is driving the growth we are seeing on this side is the exchange rate, because if you look at the Nigerian economy now, the exchange rate has equally gone up. The amount for those on the other TLDs, I mean the .com; .net, among others has gone up significantly.
“So, the situation now is you either adopt the .ng (which is far lesser) and the amount is cheaper with naira availability or you rather start looking for a dollar that is scarce and expensive, which you might not equally get and the rate of renewal of the global TLD domain platforms are equally very high. So, that alone is making people adopt more of the .ng.”
Further, he said inflation has gone up since last year, equally making so many people adopt .ng. Akinsanya said NiRA is equally doing more capacity building and awareness, saying the body is spending a lot to get this done and ensure .ng gets more visibility because it is a natural result, which gives more value like the .com and others.
According to him, the MDAs are gradually seeing the light, largely due to the intervention of the Federal Government through NITDA, which ensures that there is a training once every quarter, for all MDAs in the country to make sure that they are on the .gov.ng domain name.
The NiRA president said the greatest challenge to the adoption of Nigeria’s domain name remains patriotism.
“We just need to be patriotic in Nigeria. If China could adopt its own, the .cn; South Africa with .za; the United Kingdom with .uk, why can’t Nigeria adopt .ng. We need to be patriotic about Made-in-Nigeria products and services. If we are patriotic, capital flight will also reduce. The money will stay within and the GDP will get better and bigger,” he stated.
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