 The parable of the Christ on a lost silver COIN
 So much effort is put into recovering just a coin. And when it is
recovered, the owner fetes her friends and neighbours on account
of it. Reason? Because it is precious metal. It is common
knowledge that gold is much more precious than silver.
Over 2,000 years after the parable, the metal is just as precious
 Gold ornaments are not just jewelries, they are assets. Some
people who acquire them have been known to trade them
(without depreciation in value as at time of purchase), in order to
meet financial needs
 Contrast this with the parable of the field of precious pearls
which when a man discovered, he sold everything else for the sole
reason that he wanted to raise the necessary capital to acquire
that field.
 In comparison, the gold coin is an infinitesimal fragment of the
goldmine. It does feel good that someone amongst us has such a
perception of .ng.
E-Mail: [email protected]
Recently, an official of the government of Bahrain said in
an interview on CNN that the speculation that the
country’s oil reserves will dry up within a space of time is
a fad to discourage the citizens from a mono-cultural
economy. (Not his exact words, but that’s the meaning of
what he said).
Someone tried the same tricks on Nigerians sometime in
the past, but was not backed up with the political will to
stimulate the required change.
Gold and goldfields last a lifetime.
In other words, the point of interests is the innate
boundless potentials of .ng ccTLD
The .ng registry is managed by Nigeria Internet
Registration Association (NIRA).
NIRA is entrusted with the management of the .ng
internet name space
We maintain a register of .ng domain names
We run the technological infrastructure which locates a
computer on the internet that hosts a website or e-mail
when you request, send or receive information from
addresses that end with .ng
We recruit and certify Registrars who serve as
middlemen between the .ng registry and the end users –
the registrants.
E-Mail: [email protected]
We offer short trainings to some staff of provisionally
accredited Registrars preparatory to full accreditation as
certified NIRA registrars
We ensure consistency and fairness in the registration,
transfer and renewal of domain names in the registry
We provide look-up services for people who would want to
search for the availability of a domain name they intend to
register (Whois). Such information is available at
www.whois.com.ng
We offer Dispute Resolution Process to handle domain name
disputes in .ng. This is based on mediation.
We pursue integrity, and discourage all forms of sharp
practices such as registration of domain names in “bad faith”
E-Mail: [email protected]
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GOAL: Our immediate goal is to build a globally
reputable ccTLD that Nigerians and their
Associates would gladly adopt as the TLD of choice
As the national
INTERNATIONAL RELATIOONSHIPS:
NIRA maintains cooperative relationships with
other International Internet Communities such as
ICANN, IANA, AfTLD, AfriNIC, etc.
Some of the members of the BoT and the BoD are
represent the Nigerian government on GNSO of
ICANN
E-Mail: [email protected]
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STRUCTURE: NIRA has an about 115 members. This include Stakeholders
Associations, Registrars, and individual members. Anyone interested in the
internet could become a member.
NIRA is not a governing or a regulatory body. We manage the .ng registry which
is a national resource in trust on behalf of the Nigerian Internet community.
It is a not-for-profit Association. There are no shareholders, and even when
NIRA does become viable, it will not declare profits.
NIRA is one of few registries in Africa where membership is open to individuals
At a recent workshop for ccTLDS in Anglophone countries in Africa, the
questions “Why is membership of NIRA open to individuals; and What are the
benefits of membership ?” came up quite a few times.
BENEFITS of MEMBERSHIP:
As a member of NIRA, you can exercise
voting rights at AGMs
Participate in electing the BoT and the BoD
Be part of the Policy Development Process (PDP). That is, make direct input
into policy formulation
Serve in some committees
Participate in online discussions to share views and ideas on the activities of
NIRA, et cetera.
E-Mail: [email protected]
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The .ng ccTLD has the following features:
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A hierarchical domain structure as against the flat structure
Regular domain name registration in .ng is consigned to the third and fourth levels.
This makes the second level exclusive for NIRA’s own second level zones.
Even on the third level, some generic words have been marked as Premium, and they attract a premium
price
Second Level domains are classified into closed or open SLDs
There are currently 9 SLDS, viz:
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Domain
com.ng
edu.ng
name.ng
net.ng
org.ng
sch.ng
gov.ng
mil.ng
mobi.ng
SLD purpose
Classification
Commercial entities and purposes
(Open)
Higher and further education and research institution
(Closed)
Personal names
(Open)
Internet Service / Telecoms Providers' infrastructure
(Closed)
Not-for-profit entities
(Open)
Other Academic institutions
(Closed and at regional level)
National, regional, and local government bodies and agencies (Closed)
Military and related purposes
(Closed)
For mobile devices meeting .mobi gTLD standards
(Open)
E-Mail: [email protected]
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Our Domain Name Policy provides that
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Third Level Domains may only contain the following thirty-seven characters ("Characters") or a
combination
thereof:
the twenty-six unaccented Roman letters (i.e. a-z inclusive);
the ten western digits (i.e. 0-9 inclusive); and
hyphens.
The first or last Characters of a 3LD may not be a hyphen.
NIRA does not offer Internationalised Domain Names for now and so domain names that
start
with the characters "xn--" (i.e. "xn" followed by two dashes) may not be registered.
A Third Level Domain may not be one Character long. For example, an application to
register
i.com.ng or a.com.ng would be rejected. Except offered by auction at the second or third level.
For the SLDs com.ng, name.ng, org.ng, and net.ng, mobi.ng, a Third Level Domain may
not
consist of only two letters. For example, an application to register ie.com.ng, -a.com.ng or e-.com.ng,
would be rejected. Again as above an exception is allowed when offered by auction. Also NIRA
would not offer for auction any two letter acronym which is a validly registered trade mark
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E-Mail: [email protected]
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The hierarchical structure and the restrictions to
characters and figures afford certain advantages:
The possibility of introducing new second level
domains to serve specific trades or interest groups.
This could be either open or closed. Already,
discussions are on-going with the police towards the
introduction of a .police.ng
The potential of exploiting the diverse languages in
Nigeria to introduce the IDNs by the introduction of
non-Roman characters such as e, i, o, u, c, gb, kp, et
cetera.
.eu has implemented this successfully
E-Mail: [email protected]
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NIRA is also mindful of the unique opportunity its ccTLD name presents.
With a TLD as .ng, Nigeria’s country code assumes a global significance for
many words by coupling of the TLD with any of the vowels of the English
language.
The introduction of such unique new 2nd Level domains as “a.ng”, “e.ng”, “i.ng”,
“o.ng”, “u.ng”, would lead to combinations that would form action verbs that are
ONLY possible with the .ng ccTLD, and NOT on any other ccTLD or gTLD.
So, we could have domains like danc.i.ng (dancing), bank.i.ng (banking), s.a.ng
(sang), bel.o.ng (belong), s.u.ng (sung), f.e.ng (feng), w.i.ng (wing), cl.i.ng
(cling), wr.o.ng (wrong), s.o.ng (song), l.o.ng (long), y.o.ng (yong), b.a.ng (bang),
f.a.ng (fang), p.a.ng (pang), p.i.ng (ping), polic.i.ng (Policing), et cetera.
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NIRA intends to exploit these potentials to continue to make .ng a global
registry irrespective of the entry of new gTLDs.
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The advantages are enormous for NIRA; and even much more for the
community it serves.
E-Mail: [email protected]
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The derivable benefits are before us. Take a look at the
telecommunications industry. Even the advocates of a
liberalised telecoms in Nigeria in the 1990s could have
imagined that it would have wrought the transformation it
has achieved, so far.
Will generate employment
It has the potential of changing the way we do business
Could increase foreign trade
Major income earner
Will conserve the foreign exchange that would have been
spent on registering, hosting a domain out side, and even
the cost of bandwidth for the content.
More Nigerian content on the web
E-Mail: [email protected]
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The impact it would have on our access to
information generally, and on education,
specifically.
A good instrument to clean up Nigeria’s image
We should generate enough resources to invest in
the new gTLDs before foreigners overrun us by
taking up viable Nigerian geographical names for
their new gTLDs.
The benefits are, indeed, enormous.
E-Mail: [email protected]
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What value do we put on .ng?
E-Mail: [email protected]
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Dr. Chris Uwaje in his book, E-Knowledge: Time is
Running Out, speaks about a new kind of
colonialism: “Some shortsighted nations will wake-up
at midnight one day, in the early decades of this
century – and suddenly realize that they have been
digitally colonized”
The story of apartheid South Africa could not have
been forgotten. We know that the history of apartheid
is linked to the diamond deposit in that land
We cannot let this happen to us on the domain name
space, bearing in mind that the internet is new real
estate.
E-Mail: [email protected]