On the 28th of March 2019, representatives of the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) led by Mrs. Edith Udeagu, the Executive Secretary paid a courtesy visit to the Acting Registrar/CEO of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Lady Azinge Azuka Obiageli. The NiRA delegation was welcomed by Mrs. Gertrude Uzochikwa Akalonu, Director of Customer Service (representing the Acting-Registrar/CEO) and her team.
The essence of the visit was to intimate the Corporate Affairs Commission of who NIRA is, and seek for collaboration with Corporate Affairs Commission to grow .ng in the cyberspace and for every business registered with CAC to have a .ng domain name with its website hosted locally. The Executive Secretary noted the importance of CAC’s mandate and role in the registration of Business names and Companies, which NiRA could leverage on for prospective business owners to register their .ng domain whilst registering their business names and Companies with CAC.
In her response, Mrs Akalonu appreciated the visit and made a suggestion on how the cost of domain name registration could be absorbed and the regulation process. She highlighted the need for policy development to encourage the ease of doing business and proposed that NiRA should endeavour to collaborate with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and be visibly present at the Annual NBA conference.
Mrs Akalonu informed the meeting that CAC had embarked on a promotion to reduce the cost of registering of Business names to N5,000.00 (Five Thousand Naira Only) This was aimed at encouraging the growth of Small and Medium Scale Businesses and promoting the ease of doing business. She noted that the promotion on the reduction had been on for about six months and the Commission had seen a tremendous increase in the registration of businesses.
She further suggested possible ways NiRA could collaborate with the Commission which could be in the area of NiRA giving out free domains for a year at the point of registration by business name owners. The renewals of the domain names could be then be done by the business name owners subsequently. NIRA was also encouraged to create more awareness and sensitization of the .ng domain name.
She reiterated that Corporate Affairs Commission is ICT driven, and is committed to contributing to the growth of the ICT Industry. She noted that CAC would also explore ways to collaborate with NITDA to organise an enterprise meeting and the meeting was informed of the Enterprise Architecture project supervised under the Office of the Vice President of Nigeria.
The meeting ended on a positive note as Mrs Akalonu assured us that she would inform the Acting-General/CEO of our visit and request. The CAC team thanked NiRA delegate for the visit and promised to revert on all that had been proposed and discussed, followed by exchange of promotional materials (flyers).
