[AfrICANN-discuss] NIRA President, Engr Ndukwe Kalu, passes on

[Anne-Rachel Inné]

Dear All,
I come with a heavy heart with the below announcement. Still in shock and
grieving. The African Internet Community has lost one of its hardest working
sons.
My,and ICANN's, most heartfelt condolences go out to his family, the African
ICT community and Nigeria. May he rest in peace.
AR

**************************
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NIRA President, Engr Ndukwe Kalu, passes on

Lagos. Wednesday 9 September, 2009. The Nigerian Internet Registration
Association (NIRA) regrets to announce the demise of its pioneer President,
late Engr Ndukwe Kalu, who died in Lagos yesterday.
According to Vice President, NIRA, Mrs Mary Uduma, with the death of late
Engr Kalu, “the country has lost a dedicated ICT professional who dedicated
his expertise, resources and short presence with us to the overall growth
and development of the information and communication technology (ICT)
industry in Nigeria.”
Under the leadership of late Engr Kalu, Nigeria recently recorded the
successful full redelegation and local management of Nigeria’s country code
top level domain name, the .ng.
“With his passing away, we have lost an irreplaceable individual who was
passionately committed to ensuring the growth and development of the
Nigerian Internet community and pursued this with zeal to his last day on
earth”, added Mrs Uduma.
“For us at NIRA, we were shocked to learn of his demise but have taken
comfort in the conviction that it was the way his Maker had willed it. But
we remember him for the zeal he has contributed to the activities of NIRA
particularly the landmark achievement of full control of Nigeria’s domain
name on May 13, 2009
leading to full local management of the registry ”, added Mrs Uduma.

According to the NIRA Vice President, the body will liaise with the family
which is expected to announce further burial arrangements in due course.
Before his passing on, late Engr. Kalu was into design and installation of
various networks for over a decade. Also noteworthy was the fact that Engr.
Kalu pioneered IT publications in Nigeria.
This was through the publishing of Nigeria’s first IT magazine called IT
WATCH AFRICA in 1994. From there, late Engr. Kalu revolutionized newspaper
IT reporting by conceptualizing and commencing the first robust IT section
in the Nigerian Newspaper history, tagged InfoTech ThisDay in 1998.
He was a member of several professional bodies some of which are Nigeria
Society of Engineers, Nigeria Computer society, Nigeria Institute of
management, Chartered Institute of Administration, Institute of Data
processing and management (IDPM) London, among others.
Late Engr. Kalu also served on various boards some of which are Amsco
Telecoms Limited, Amsco Nigeria Limited, Admiral Insurance Company Limited,
Pricehouse Communication Limited, Alphastream Solutions Nigeria Limited,
among others.
He also recently served as a joint committee of the Nigeria Communications
Commission and ISPN on developing a suitable regulation for the use of ISM
band. In 2004 he was elected as National Vice President of the Internet
Service Providers Association of Nigeria (ISPAN). Also he served on the NCC
Industry committee set up to advise on VoIP regulation.
Late Engr. Kalu also served on the National Cyber crime Working Group, a
body set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to fashion out effective
legislation and system to fight cybercrime in Nigeria.
Engr. Kalu has recently spearhead several initiative to improve teledensity
and Internet penetration in Nigeria, one of which is Naijawifi, an alliance
of Nigerian ISPs set to blanket all of Nigeria with Wi-Fi Internet Access.
He was also the Chairman of NCC/Presidential Committee to actualize a
sustainable Internet Exchange for Nigeria.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/africann/attachments/20090911/c6b10b46/attachment.htm