by Emma Chidiogo

The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) has said that the number of .ng domains in Nigeria is approaching 60,000, since its launch in 2012.

A domain name is a unique name that identifies an internet resource such as a website. It is also a website’s means of identification e.g .com, .net and .ng.

Between January and July, 2014, about 11,075 domain names were registered.

President of NiRA, Mary Uduma, who revealed this said that the increased in .ng domain registration in the first quarter of 2014 showed the success of the association’s intensified action to populate the country’s Switch-To-.ng Domain Name’ campaign.

“Although the number appears impressive, Nigeria is still scratching the surface in terms of registered individuals and organisations and called for more registration of the country’s domain name,” she said.

“With the 11, 075 domain names registered this year alone, NIRA would be getting close to 60,000 registered .ng domain names, since it began the campaign to populate domain name registration in the country in 2012,” she said.

A breakdown of the 11,075 registered .ng domain names, shows that in January, a total of 1, 429 domain names were registered; February saw 1, 498 registered; in March, 2, 310; April, 1, 690; May, 1,413; June, 1,333; and July – 1,402. This brings the sum total of all registered second and third level domain names from January to July this year to 11,075.

Of the registered .ng domains, 7,280 were for renewal of registration, while 503 were registered by NIRA’ accredited registrars.

It was learnt that the slow uptake of .ng domain names, which currently goes for about US$92 (NGN15,000)is due to the fear of the action fuelling cybercrimes in the country.

Emmanuel Chidiogo