AFTER nearly 10 years of bickerings, back

stabbings and controversial

pronouncements on who should manage and

host Nigeria's country code Top Level

Domain (ccTLD), stakeholders have

endorsed the Nigerian Internet

Registration Association (NIRA), to do

the job.

Although, the Internet Corporation for

Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) had

ceded the right to a properly organised

stakeholders group in 2004, none had been

put in place so in place of that proposed

organisation, National Information

Technology Development Agency (NITDA) had

stood in.

The ccTLD had been managed since

inception by an American, Mr. Randy Bush,

resident in the United States from 1992

till date. While the administrative

contact person was Mrs. Ibukun Odusote.

The controversy trailing the hosting

right made President Olusegun Obasanjo to

step in on January 16, 2004 and directed

that the management of the ccTLD.ng

should be transferred from Mrs. Odusote

to NITDA.

NITDA, Obasanjo insisted, should set up a

transparent mechanism that will enable

the Internet community in Nigeria and

stakeholders to participate in the

formation of a new body to manage and

administer the ccTLD as a national

resource.

This position was communicated to ICAAN,

which responded on June 9, 2004 and

endorsed the administrative change as a

pre-requisite for NITDA to formally

proceed with the implementation of

President Obasanjo's directive.

And while the battle between Nigeria

Internet Group (NIG), Nigeria Computer

Society (NCS) among other stakeholders

raged, Nigeria's scarce resource with the

suffix.ng remained under the watchful

eyes of Randy Bush.

None was willing to shift grounds.

Indeed the history of Nigeria's Internet

is checkered. It has been fraught with

controversies, bickering and internecine

battles among interest groups. The effect

has been the slow pace in the development

of that national resource. Successive

efforts to resolve the conflicts were

unsuccessful until the intervention of

the Presidency.

Last week, the man, who managed the cctld

in the United States was in Nigeria and

was a guest of NITDA as part of his

itinerary. For the first time, he spoke

about how he came to host Nigeria's top

level domain. What he 'earns' for his

efforts and his wishes for Nigeria, and

other issues. That story is exclusively

available to The Guardian. In this

report, however, we bring you details of

the effort of stakeholders to take over

the management of Nigeria's Internet from

the American.

Several individuals, corporate,

educational, government and professional

groups responded to NITDA's invitation to

submit position papers on the way

forward.

NITDA constituted a small team that

evaluated the submissions from which an

agenda for a National Stakeholder Forum

was drafted. This forum was scheduled and

series of national advertisements

preceded the event.

First National Stakeholders' Conference -

August 9, 2004

On August 9, 2004, the first National

Stakeholders' Conference was held in

Lagos. The conference, which was very

well attended, attracted all segments of

the Internet Community in Nigeria.

To ensure that actual experiences from

other countries were shared amongst

Nigerian stakeholders, two international

resource persons from Kenya and South

Africa; Michuki Mwangi and Mike Lawrie,

were invited, they shared their

experience on the domain name management

of their respective countries. This was

followed by an interactive session

involving the participants present.

Stakeholders, who had sent position

papers to NITDA on the ccTLD management

were also given the opportunity to make

presentations at the forum on their

proposals.

At the end of the forum, a communique,

which was endorsed by the principal

stakeholders including the incumbent

Administrative Contact of the ccTLD.ng

was issued. The key recommendation of the

Forum was the creation of a Working Group

by the stakeholders, whose responsibility

was to establish the modalities for

setting up the non-governmental,

not-for-profit organisation to mange the

ccTLD.ng.

The numbers of the Working Group were as

follows:

* National Information Technology

Development Agency (NITDA);

* Nigerian Communications Commission

(NCC)

* Nigeria Computer Society (NCS)

* Internet Services Providers'

Association of Nigeria (ISPAN)

* Nigeria Internet Group (NIG)

* Computer Professionals Registration

Council of Nigeria (CPN)

* Nigerian University Commission (NUC)

* Nigerian Society of Engineering (NSE)

* National Broadcasting Commission (NBC)

* Association of Telecommunications

Companies (ATCON)

* Federal Ministry of Science and

Technology

* Federal Ministry of Communications

* Federal Ministry of Education

* Federal Ministry of Information and

National Orientation

* The Presidency

* Bankers Committee of Nigeria

* Youth Groups

* The Media

* Nigerian Information Technology

Professionals Association (NITPA)

* Two Representatives of State

Governments.

Post Forum Consultations

Following the decisions reached at the

Stakeholders' Froum, NITDA organised a

meeting of a smaller subgroup of 8

members on October 26, 2004 to fine tune

the modalities for the establishment of

the non-government not-for-profit

organisation scheduled to take-over the

management of the ccTLD.nig.

On November 4, 2004, the larger

Stakeholders' Working Group convened a

meeting to deliberate on the modalities

drawn up by the Group of 8 mentioned

above. The meeting was held at the

conference room of the National

Information Technology Development Agency

(NITDA). The meeting reviewed all the

position papers submitted to NITDA and

emerged with resolutions on the take off

of the anticipated organisation.

The members of the .ng Working Group

agreed that the nature of the institution

would be non-governmental, not for

profit, private sector driven and

inclusive of and accountable to all

members of the internet community in the

country.

It was resolved that the name of the

organisation would be Nigerian Internet

Registration Authority (NiRA) and that it

would be registered as an Incorporated

Trustee.

It was agreed that the Government's role

should be supervisory at best and that

policy and practice on the ccTLD

management should be determined by the

emerging entity, pursuant to the

prevailing market forces. In addition to

these resolutions it was generally

acceptable and that the Government's role

would include intervention during

conflicts.

The structure of the institution was

broken into four major departments namely

Administrative, Technical, Registration

Services and Dispute Resolution

departments. It was agreed that the

Dispute Resolution Department should be

in line with ICANN's established policies

on the subject matter and while a

department should be created in NiRA to

handle publication of rules and related

matters in this regard, actual dispute

resolution Service Providers shall be

appointed by the TLD manager under

conditions approved by the Board of

Trustees of the institution. It was

stressed that it was very important for

such a department to be staffed by

competent professionals with an in depth

understanding of the workings of the

Internet, intellectual property law and

other international accepted laws.

The Working Group concluded that general

details relating to technical operations

and s well as institutional and

individual competence should be left for

the emerging institution to decide in

order to ensure that the designated

manager is given sufficient room to

develop satisfactory and sound technical

plans for the registry, essential for the

stability and integrity of the registry.

The Second Stakeholders Forum - March 23,

2005

In continuing the efforts to establish

the.ng ccTID Manager, NITDA organised a

Stakeholders' Forum on the management of

Nigeria's country code top level domain

(ccTLD.ng), which was held on March 23,

2005 at the Muson Centre, Lagos. The

Forum was attended by a number of

individuals, who were present in their

personal capacity and others, who

represented organisations.

The proposal for the management of the

.ngccTLD developed by the Group of 22

Stakeholders Representatives was

presented by the secretariat of the G22

ccTLD Working Group in NITDA.

The presentation by the G22 ccTLD Working

Group highlighted the issues that were

considered before living at the position

contained in the proposal. Some of these

were:

* The proposed name and structure for the

anticipated organisation that would mange

the .ngcc TLD;

* The role of government

* The organs and departments for the

anticipated organisation;

* Technical and administrative functions

* Broad guidelines for the appointment of

Domain Name Registrars and Second Level

Domain Name Hosts;

* Free services to certain

non-governmental organisations

* A structure for domain name dispute

resolution.

Name of the Organisation

The G22 proposed that the organisation be

named the Nigeria Internet Registration

Authority (NiRA) out of a list of 2 names

which included the following:

* Nigeria Information Center (ng NIC)

* Nigeria Internet Corporation for

Assigned Names and Numbers (NiCAANN)

NiRA was adopted by a majority vote; but

was modified to read, Nigeria Internet

Registration Association instead of

Nigeria Internet Registration Authority.

The votes cast were 53 for NiRA, 9 for

ngNIC and 1 for NiCANN.

Organs of the Organisation

The G22 proposed the following organs for

the NIRA:

* General Assembly to serve as the policy

and power base of organisation;

* The Board of Trustees to serve as an

advisory body shaping policies, practice

and programmes;

* The Executive Board consisting of

elected termed positions and;

* The Management Committee to handle the

day-to-day operations of the ccTLD

manager.

After deliberations, the Forum agreed

that the proposed organs were too many

and would lead to unnecessary duplication

of efforts. The importance of a

streamlined and effective organisation

was emphasised. It was resolved that the

fundamental structure of the organs would

be addressed after a constitution had

been draw up in order to get a clearer

picture of the roles which the various

organs would play in the organisation.

Departments of the Organisation

The G22 proposed 4 departments for NIRA

namely:

* TLD Administrative Department;

* TLD Technical Department;

* Registration Services Department; and

* Domain Name Dispute Resolution

Department

The Forum resolved that the Domain Name

Dispute Resolution Department should be

merged with the Administrative Department

and the Registration Service Department

should be merged with the Technical

Department. NIRA should have 2 working

Department namely the Administrative

Department and the Technical Department.

Appointment of domain name registrars

The G22 proposed that domain name

registrars should be appointed based on

"conditions applicable to Internet

Service Providers." The Forum adopted

this proposal with an alteration. The

word "standards" was adopted instead of

"conditions."

Second level domain name hosting

The G22 proposal on the second level

domain name hosting was adopted by the

Forum with modifications. The Forum

resolved that the cadre of

non-governmental organizations which

would be eligible for free domain name

hosting should not be mentioned in the

guidelines.

Domain name Dispute Resolution

The Forum resolved that the bulk of the

functions of dispute resolution would be

outsourced to competent arbitrators.

Would have to possess requisite legal

background.

Board of Trust for NIRA: The Forum

deliberated on the constitution of a

Board of Trustees for NIRA. While most

members favoured a small Board comprising

of 5 or 7 members, others recommended

that the representative G22 ccTLD Working

Group should constitute the Board of

Trustees. A compromise was reached and

the following persons were nominated as

the members of the Board of Trustees for

the purpose of registration with the

Corporate Affairs Commission.

Dr. Moses Ubaru National Information

Technology Development Agency

Dr. Chris Nwannenna Nigeria Computer

Society

Engr. Akinsola Cole Nigeria Society of

Engineers

Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem Nigerian Internet

Group

Mrs. Ibukun Odusote Federal Ministry of

Information

Mr. Emmanuel Arinze Presidency

Mrs. Mary Uduma Nigerian Communication

Commission

Dr. G. M. M. Obi Computer Professionals

Registration Council of Nigeria

Prof. I. S. Diso Kano State University of

Technology

Proclamation and establishment of the .ng

ccTLD manager:

At the conclusion of the deliberations

the following proclamation establishing

the .ngccTLD manage was made;

"All ICT stakeholders and the internet

community in Nigeria hereby establish for

Nigeria, a non-governmental

not-for-profit private sector led

organisation to be known as the Nigeria

Internet Registration Association (NIRA)

to manage the Nigeria country code top

level domain ( ccTLD.ng) in good faith

and in the interest of the internet

community in Nigeria."

Post forum activities

The inaugural meeting of the board of

trustees was held on April 6, 2006 in

Lagos and two subsequent meetings have

been held in Abuja on the April 15, 2005

and May 12, 2005 respectively.

The board of trustees in accordance with

its mandate has concentrated its energy

on the formulation and adoption of a

transparent and comprehensive

constitution for NIRA. The first and

second drafts of the constitution of NIRA

were read and reviewed by the members of

the board of trustees and circulated

widely for comments and contributions

from members of the public. A website was

also developed for the entity.

Since then, considerable progress in the

domesticating the management of the ccTLD

has been made. While the process of

incorporating NIRA was on, NITDA acquired

the servers needed to host the .ng ccTLD

and trained six domain name

administrators under the auspices of the

agency and with the collaboration of Mr.

Sunday Folayan (the CEO of Skannet) and

Mrs. Ibukun Odusote (the erstwhile POC of

the ccTLD).

The purpose of the action taken by NITDA

was to develop an effective strategy to

take over the management of Nigeria's

ccTLD from the U.S-based technical

administrator, Mr. Randy Bush, pending

the time NIRA would be fully born and

ready to assume complete control.

Today, that strategy has paid off.

Although NIRA has been incorporated, it

has not yet assumed control of the

management of the ccTLD. But NITDA is

hosting and facilitating the registration

of domain names until such a time NIRA

would be ready to take full control.

Through the active support and efforts of

Sunday Folayan, the registration of

domain names and management of the ccTLD

by NITDA is now automated. It is

therefore expected that when NIRA assumes

control. It will inherit a robust and

fully automated process.

At its first yearly general meeting,

hosted by the new NIRA board of trustees

on May 1, 2007, the association elected

an executive management board headed by

Mr. Ndukwe Kalu as the president.

The NIRA AGM coincided with this year's

AFNOG workshop hosted for the first time

in Nigeria and sponsored by NITDA.

NITDA's sponsorship of the African

Network Operators Group workshop enabled

the training of over 30 Nigerians in

building scalable web systems and similar

networking courses. Among the key

instructors were Mr. Randy Bush and his

wife, Zita Wenzel, who manages the United

States ccTLD.