<table cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="250"><tbody><tr><td><strong style="font-size: 18px;">Adopt the .ng ccTLD name</strong> <br>General, HANA Staff
</td></tr>
<tr><td>By: Jonah Iboma </td></tr>
<tr><td>10:03:56 14/08/2007</td></tr></tbody></table><br><a href="http://hana.ru.ac.za/article.cfm?articleID=1572">http://hana.ru.ac.za/article.cfm?articleID=1572</a> <br><br>The Nigeria Internet Registration Association, the Nigerian body
in-charge of the administration of Nigeria's Top-Level Domain Name,
.ng, is to begin talks with corporate organsiations to ensure that they
register their websites under the .ng domain. The President, NIRA Mr.
Kalu Ndukwe, said the plan was to ensure that the country had a net
identity that was consistent with what obtained elsewhere in the world.
"Our belief in this is that as the leading private and public sector
organisations they are seen by both Nigerians and foreigners are a
reflection of the Nigerian taste and direction,"he said. <p>
According to him, with the formation of NIRA, the time had come to
ensure that issues that concerning Nigeria on the Internet were handled
as they should. He said a National Website competition for the
construction of the <a href="http://nira.org.ng">nira.org.ng</a> website would also be held to promote
internet growth in the country. </p><p>
Ndukwe said part of the policy to promote the dot ng ccTLD would
involve a modification of the current annual Webjurist competition that
rates the websites of banks. NIRA said it was working with Phillips
Consulting, which administers the award towards ensuring an expansion
of the competition to include sites of firms from other sectors of the
economy. Besides, he said only websites that were registered in the
Nigerian domain name would be analysed. This means websites that end
with .com, .org, or .net and others would not be eligible for rating. </p><p>
It said NIRA had set up a transition arrangement that would precede the
full take off of its activities in the country. He said, "The board has
approved a transition operation to act as bridge between now and when
NIRA take-full charge and control. This arrangement enables NIRA to
meet administrative and technical demands." </p><p>
Among the things the board had put in place under the transition
operation is a temporary office manned by a full time Administrative
Secretary. </p><p>
He said this office would act as a physical point of contact for
general correspondence, domain registration services and Membership
services. The NIRA boss also said during the transition periods the
subsisting policy of free domain registration would continue, but with
a modification. </p><p>
Ends.... </p>