The Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA), Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, and President of the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA), Mr Muhammed Rudman have said they would put modalities in place to ensure global visibility for Nigerian companies to promote the Digital Economy Agenda for a Digital Nigeria.
The promise was made during a working visit to NITDA by NiRA top management led by Mr Rudman. The visit was in part to solicit for the Agency’s supports going forward and to also present the report of her 12th Annual General Meeting held virtually on Thursday, 30th July 2020 to the DG, NITDA.
Mr Rudman informed that the Association is making frantic effort to promote the digital economy by offering free .com.ng domain name to newly registered companies by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), “we are seeking the NITDA’s assistance for the CAC/NIRA Integration platform,” he said.
“This means automation of the system such that someone registering a company with CAC will have the option of taking a .com.ng domain name.”, he further explained.
He added that the initiative would give global visibility to Nigerian companies by giving them an opportunity to have a web presence.
The NIRA President further disclosed that the Association is trying to domesticate the internet with the objective of hosting websites locally with the resultant effect of increasing the internet speed and reduction in the cost of data usage.
The DG, while addressing the delegates said it is important for the Agency and the Association to be strategic partners to make a resounding impact in the IT sector.
He urged NiRA to be more innovative and improve on their activities and collaboration with NITDA. Mallam Abdullahi encouraged the Association to not only be reporting to NITDA but to also align their activities to various NITDA’s Initiatives, adding that government and private sector needs each other.
“The role of government is to create an enabling environment for you to succeed and your part is to tell the government what it is you need to succeed,” he advised.
Mallam Abdullahi, while speaking on some of the challenges highlighted by the Association, maintained that as registrars they needed to know who owns the company they are registering and he urged NiRA to come up with a Know Your Customer (KYC) Policy in other to assist themselves and the security agencies in case of eventualities.
During the visit, NiRA also submitted to NITDA its annual report and presented it future plans to the Agency. This is statutorily based on the Memorandum of Understanding, (MoU) between NITDA and NiRA to present an annual report to the Agency.
Source: Vanguard
