The Federal Executive Council (Nigeria) approved the National Policy on the Nigerian Government Second-Level Domains during its meeting on the 16th of February, 2022 and barred its workers from the use of generic domains.
On the 16th of February 2022 at the Federal Executive Council weekly meeting, Prof Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, presented a policy developed to strengthen the public confidence in the use of digital technologies and encourage more participation in the digital economy.
The Policy is in line with the implementation of the e-Government Master Plan approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in August 2018. The Master Plan aims to create a world-class open and digitalized Government that connects with people to drive efficiency in public administration, responsiveness of civil services, and transparency in Governance, leading to an improvement in the quality of life of Nigerians.
In his presentation, Prof. Pantami spoke on the need for the Government Institutions to key into this policy to effectively regulate and manage the use of Information and Communication Technologies as it relates electronic correspondence. This was due to the increase in the rate of cyber-related incidences that have been happening in the country, which has led to most countries enacting policies to ensure that official correspondence was only conducted using approved domains and platforms in Government institutions.
The Honorable Minister further stated that using generic domains and private emails for conducting Government business and correspondence jeopardizes the Nigerian Government’s identity, security, and global reputation on the Internet. The use of personal emails for official business limits the ability to archive and back up sensitive Government data, making it difficult to preserve historical correspondence and documents stored on Non-Government servers.
The National Policy seeks to promote transparency in Governance, protect Nigerian cyberspace and promote the Digital Nigeria agenda. It provides direction for the enforcement of the mandatory use of the Nigerian Government second-level domains by all Federal Public Institutions and recommended to be adopted by States and Local Governments. The scope covers the Nigerian Government’s second-level domain and email services on.gov.ng,.mil.ng,.edu.ng,.sch.ng, and any other Nigerian Government-owned second-level domains that could be approved in the future.
The Policy also aims at accelerating the adoption of second-level domains (.gov.ng,.edu.ng, and.mil.ng) under the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), and the policy will be implemented with immediate effect by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), which is overseen by the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
Professor Pantami encourage all Federal Public Institutions to obtain a Nigerian Government Second-level Domain from NITDA and migrate to that platform with immediate effect. As part of the implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), the Ministry will continue to be positioned to harness technology in order to evolve into a truly sustainable digital world.