NIRA Seeks Media Support on DNS Awareness

The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) has called on the media to support towards educating the public on the Domain Name System (DNS), as an emerging industry in the country.

According the Association, the DNS market is a multi-billion naira with potentials to generate jobs, create wealth, boost employment, and sure way to earn forex and reduce capital flight.

In spite the huge potentials, the market has remained untapped in the country. To this end, Mr. Sikiru Shehu, dean of NIRA Media College made the remarks during 2017 .NG Media College, a workshop for media practitioners, held in Lagos recently.

Shehu described the DNS as allows citizens to easily access a website, through domain names and which maps the domain name to its Internet Protocol (IP) address.

He said, “In 2017 the world domain count was over 300 million, the entire Africa has less than 2 million domain names, and Nigeria with an estimated 180 million population has less than 100,000 domains on its .ng string.” He listed countries with their domain name registration as follow: Nigeria- 90,036; Kenya-61,623; South Africa-1,148,095; UK- 10,600,000; India- 2,235,471, China- 21,100,000.

Shehu cited the challenges in the industry in Africa to include, low awareness, poor Internet infrastructure and penetration, lack of government policy in member countries that can drive the uptake of Africa Country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), preferences for foreign Domain names; poverty of minds and ideas, absence of creative and innovative DNS entrepreneurs. Country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) are domain extensions generally used to indicate a site contains content specifically relevant to a particular country, territory, or region.

“NiRA Academy and Resource Centre (of .ng registry, NiRA) has been charged with the mandate as derived from Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to develop the Domain Name Industry in Nigeria through partnership and collaboration with stakeholders. The media is the catalyst Nigeria DNS industry is waiting for more awareness, and mobilizing through advocacy,” Dean of NIRA Media College said.

He said the academy was ready to breed Nigerians to take advantage of the jobs and business opportunities, wealth creation, financial rewards .ng domain name has to offer and also empowering them through skill development and capacity building.

Also speaking, Mrs. Edith Udeagu, chief operating officer of NiRA said that understanding the DNS industry by the journalists is imperative for effective message delivery, adding that the Association was ready to partner them in spreading to ensure steady growth of .ng brand in the country.