The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) says the .gov.ng domain name identifies Nigeria on the internet space and urges public institutions to adopt it to avoid discrepancies.
Dr Isa Pantami, the Director General, NITDA, gave this advice at the .gov.ng and .mil.ng domain names sensitisation forum and presentation of its reviewed policy to stakeholders in Abuja.
Pantami explained that the .gov.ng was the Federal Government’s domain while .mil.ng was the military domain recommended for public institutions.
According to him, registering institutions as gov.ng is a 3rd Level domain name and it is generic.
“In line with NITDA’s plan of eliminating irregularities in the gov.ng domain name authorisation and registration process and effective management of subdomains within the third Level of the gov.ng, we recommend that institutions should explore the use of fourth level domains.
“For instance, it is appropriate to only register bayelsa.gov.ng and then create housing.bayelsa.gov.ng and other subdomains.
“We are trying to encourage institutions to move from the generic domain to the .gov.ng domain.
“As of April 29, we have 138,060 institutions using our country’s identity domain; 2,274 are using .gov.ng while 278 are using .mil.ng.
“From Sept. 29, 2016 to April 29, there is a serious improvement in this migration, which is recorded at 18.3 per cent increase.
“Using the .gov.ng domain name is our country’s identity and whoever that sees it knows that you are from Nigeria and it our collective responsibility to ensure we promote our country,” Pantami said.
Pantami emphasised that the agency had to review its policy because Information Communication Technology (ICT) was not static.
“Technology is advancing, if you are static, then you will expire, which is why we always update our regulatory instruments,” he said.
Mrs Edith Idiabu, Executive Secretary, NIRA, said the association had 3R Model of registering domain names which include ‘Registry, Registrar and Registrant.
According to her, the association has 66 accredited registrars with automated platforms and payment system platforms.
Idiabu said they were working on getting registrars across the country, to ensure seamless registration processes for NIRA and NITDA.