NiRA Celebrates Nigeria’s Advancement in Africa in Domain Registrations

Nigeria’s biggest advantage is its huge population and strong economy. Nigeria has the most Internet users on the continent. Nigeria is slightly behind Kenya in the number of ccTLD domains, but ahead in gTLD domains, and also scores highly in six IXPs.
Speaking at the launch of the report, ICANN Interim President and CEO Sally Costerton said the report sheds light on the growth, challenges, and opportunities of the Domain Name System (DNS) across Africa. “Building on our initial work in 2016, this study provides important insights into how the landscape is evolving and where it is headed. This study is an integral part of ICANN’s commitment to support the growth and development of Internet infrastructure, particularly DNS infrastructure, in a highly dynamic region.

The recommendations were also made in response to requests from the African community as part of the implementation of ICANN’s Africa Regional Plan for 2021-2025. “This is essential to realize the full potential of Africa’s DNA industry.
A recent report by NiRA showed that the number of registrations of .ng domain names, Nigeria’s country code top-level domain (ccTLD), has surpassed 215,000.

Commenting on the report, the Chairman of the Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NiRA), Mr. Adesola Akinsanya, expressed delight at the growth trajectory of Nigeria’s domain names. According to him, the report reflects the efforts of NiRA and other stakeholders, especially registrars, to deepen the DNS industry in the country.
Here are his words, “This study was conducted on the African DNA industry and I know of the first edition where Nigeria was not even in the top three. Now we are number two in Africa. This shows that the efforts of NiRA, the former and current EBoD and Secretariat staff, and the registrars are having an impact.
This study also shows the efforts of the registries to ensure that DNS industry best practices are adhered to. “Secondly, this is a continental review. We are not people who praise ourselves. The message we (NiRA) want to convey to the Nigerian DNS community is that there is no other DNS community in the country. Hence, .ng is our common passport in the digital space. We welcome the efforts of enterprises, web developer communities, registrars, companies, and individuals to adopt .ng. We can do more as we are not the first yet. There is a lot of work to be done. So, let us work towards growing the adoption of .ng whilst overcoming all the necessary challenges.”
Murtala Abdullahi, CEO of Smartweb Nigeria Limited, one of the NiRA registrars, said the report shows that NG adoption is on the rise, adding: “As the country is blessed with a large population, many individuals and businesses have shown interest in .ng domain names.
Meanwhile, Sir Remy Nweke, Senior Advisory Strategist at DigitalSENSE Africa Media, said he was happy that the efforts of NiRA BOT and EBoD have paid off, stressing that more pioneers are needed for the adoption of .ng in the country. He said, “We are not there yet, but we are making steady progress and that is exciting. So it is encouraging that this study has been positive for us. And we are confident that we will continue to work together to ensure that everything that is done is progressive. That way, even if we don’t do this exercise again until next year or the year after, we will have improved internet adoption and internet penetration. You can achieve local hosting and other variables.”
According to the report, Google has indexed a total of 44. 3 million websites in .ng domains, a significant increase from 16 million the previous year.