FEC Policy mandates MDAs to migrate Websites and Emails to Government Sub-Domain (gov.ng).
In a recent development, the Federal Executive Council has approved the National Policy on the Mandatory Use of Government Second Level Domain aimed at promoting local content and securing official communications, using government top-level domain of “dot government dot ng (.gov.ng)”.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, disclosed this when he addressed State House correspondents on the outcome of the Council meeting, presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, on Wednesday in Abuja. The policy mandates all MDAs to migrate from generic domains in web/emails to government sub-domains under the Country Top Level Domain (.ng)
The Minister revealed that policy approval implies that all government officials must migrate from using generic domains on their websites, emails as it may apply, and migrate all content to the second level domain under the government top-level domain. He added that the use of private emails such as yahoo.com, hotmail.com or gmail.com for official communications by government officials would be counter productive to the approved policy by the Federal Government.
The policy submitted by the Minister was entitled, National Policy on the Government, Second Level Domain. The policy approval, focuses more on mandating federal public institutions, ministries, departments, agencies, and all institutions as long as they are for government to migrate from using generic domain on their websites and their emails to the second level domain under government top-level domain.
“What is most important is, dot ng (.ng), is our national identity. There are many categories of the second level domain. Some are for military. You will see like mil.ng. mil is a short form of Military. You can see .gov.ng. for government and .ng for Nigeria. So, there are closed categories of the second level domain that must be visible on our websites, so that whoever gets access will know that this website is from Nigeria. While for email, it must reflect the official name as designated by each MDAs using the appropriate string.’’
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami.
On benefits of the system, he added that firstly, it’s for Nigeria’s National Security, citing that websites are being created in other countries without relating but claiming to be from Nigeria.
The ICT Community is pleased with this development and hopes that the Private Sector will step in to support and promote the use of the .ng ccTLD. This would boost the number of registrant, create more job opportunity for management and support in understanding Webmail Usage and secure information, to an extent. It also promises to boost the number of domestication around State Government.
The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) is the official registry. It boast an efficient team in the management of the registry, 24/7. Since inception, the NiRA Ecosystem has been doing its to stand out and shine in its execution of mandate for the Nigerian Image Online.
“And it will go a long way in promoting and improving our global ranking when it comes to human development, when it comes to fighting poverty and many more,” he stated.
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