The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) says that it has registered 215,441 of the country’s .ng domain name in the last two years.
The NIRA President, Mr Adesola Akinsanya, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that as at two years ago, the .ng adoption had barely crossed 100,000 but now it was over 200,000.
Akinsanya said that the .ng domain name so far registered was encouraging compared to previous years.
“Based on the awareness and measures in place, the impact of the adoption of the domain name is not geometrical but now there has been some increment.
“Adoption rates of .ng is increased but not at the speed that people expected,” he said.
NAN reports that a country’s domain name is a series of unique names that identify the country’s website. Each country’s domain name is made up of two or more parts, and separated by dots.
The suffix indicates the top-level domain such as .gov for government agencies, .org for non-profit organisations, .com for commercial businesses, and .net for Top of Form.
Akinsanya said that globally, there had been reduction in the adoption of domain names, especially for the country code where it competed with the generic top-level domain name such as .com.
He said that the issue with the low rate of adoption of the domain name was that people look at it as being localised and not given a worldwide coverage, adding that this was, however, a misconception.
According to him, if people with other country code extensions can reach to the end of the world, it should be the same with .ng
“Trust is an issue, Nigerians do not want to be associated with .ng. Automatically, the thing that comes to mind is that one government is in charge and anytime, my domain name can be taken down.
“So, people want to have that global outlook and want their businesses to be seen as global; that .ng limits that global perspectives and restricts the business to Nigeria audiences is one of the issues we have.
“Also, awareness is another issue. There is need for people to know about .ng , and we are trying to reach out to associations like the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN).
“SMEDAN has a large membership, whose business can come onboard.
“NIRA is not stopping because it realises the need to continue the awareness and work with stakeholders to ensure people are aware there is a .ng domain name,” he said.
The NIRA boss said that it used its special-purpose vehicle such as Ndukwe Kanu Foundation as its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to bridge all the sensitisation gaps.
He added that it also equally had taken the awareness to some professional bodies that had large membership such as SMEDAN, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) and some medical associations.
Akinsanya noted that the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) had done a good job in co-opting organisations to adopt the .org.ng domain name, by putting in place a policy which mandated all MDAs to adopt it.
He also said that there were ongoing talks with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) where all new registered businesses could adopt the .ng and have the option of being onboarded.
‘’We know that if we achieve this, it will go a long way since we have the data of businesses that register on a daily basis. We know that it will be a great feat and propel the .ng out there,’’ Akinsanya said.
The NIRA president emphasised availability and affordability as part of the benefits of adopting a domain name.
He said that the cheapest domain name being the .name.ng cost N400 to adopt, while the .com.ng cost less than N1500.
He added that the advantages of using .ng included brand recognition, local identity, search engine optimisation and availability in that the level of .ng domain names are still available, unlike .com in which the names are taken.
Akinsanya said that it was supporting the local economy, when one patronises the country’s domain name, adding that it assisted in the growth of the economy.
He noted that one also did not need to source for dollar to buy the .com domain name that was not affordable.
According to him, the .ng domain name is secure and does not encourage cyber squatting, all the security features are there and fraudulent people will be exposed.
Akinsanya said that, additionally, there was the security level in it called DNS SEC, which was an additional layer of security to make the .ng domain name more secured.
