The Nigeria Internet Governance Forum (NIGF) held from the 10th to 13th of July, 2017 at the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Hall, Muhammed Murtala Square, Race Course Road, Kaduna. The theme for this year’s forum was “Internet: Connecting, Shaping and Empowering the People”.
The main event which took place on the 13th of July, 2017 was formally declared open by the Governor of Kaduna State, his Excellency, Mallam Nasir el- Rufai (aka Digital and e-Governor, the Pacesetter). He expressed the State’s commitment in supporting ICT start-ups and NIGF. The “Digital” Governor offered to host NIGF every year at Kaduna.
Mrs. Mary Nma Uduma, the Immediate President, of the Nigeria Internet Registration (NiRA), and also the Convener of NIGF, dwelt on using the Internet to connect, shape and empowering the People. The NIGF Local Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Group (NIGF-MAG) worked tirelessly to ensure the success of the NIGF 2017.
There were pre-NIGF programmes this year. Firstly, there was a Capacity Building Program for Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) on Internet Governance from the 10th to 11th of July, 2017. Representatives of the EFCC, ngCERT, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), etc. were present.
The NIRA President, Reverend Sunday Folayan, made a presentation on “NiRA’s Activities Related to Registration Directory Services & Consumer Protection”, the NiRA Vice President, Mr. Muhammed Rudman made a presentation to the LEAs present titled “An overview of the DNS Ecosystem and the role of the LEA”. The Dean of the NiRA Academy, Mr. Sikiru Shehu was also present to deliver a lecture on the “Existing Initiatives on Building Capacity of Law Enforcement & Security Agencies”. The Chief Operating Officer, Mrs Edith Udeagu was also there to attend to enquiries about NIRA.
Some of the takeaways from the Training Sessions included the need for the LEAs to build capacity in their use of ICT for information sharing and the need to effectively link up with Interpol regarding speedy resolutions of cybercrime.
On the 12th July, 2017, the second pre-NIGF event was the Youth Workshop with the theme “Empowering the Connected Youths”. The youth attendance was high. The youth were attentive, learning about the various funding options and mentoring processes.
NIGF 2017 was a good platform for NIRA to reach out, and educate the participants of the benefits of registering .ng domain name and becoming members of our great Association.