FG Bars Workers from Use of Generic Domains, Set to Enforce .gov.ng Usage

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.

This followed the presentation of a memo by Professor Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, TechEconomy.ng can report.

The Policy, according to a statement signed by Dr Femi Adeluyi, Technical Assistant (Research & Development) to the Minister, was developed to strengthen public confidence in the use of digital technologies and participation in the digital economy.

The Policy is also in line with the implementation of the Nigerian e-Government Master Plan, approved by the Federal Executive Council in August 2018.

“The Master Plan has a vision 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 improvement of the quality of life of Nigerians”.

The government said that the increasing rate of cyber-related incidences has inspired countries to develop Policy instruments to effectively regulate and manage their use of Information and Communication Technologies in Government Institutions, specifically electronic correspondences within the government.  Several countries have put policies in place to ensure that official correspondences are only conducted using approved domains and platforms in Government Institutions.

Although, this is  not the first time the Federal Executive Council is directing workers to desist from the use of generic domains, the government however pointed out that the use of generic domains and private emails for Government businesses and correspondences impedes the identity, security and global recognition of the Nigerian Government on the Internet.

Furthermore, the use of private emails for Government business is a major limitation to the capabilities to archive and back-up sensitive Government data thereby making it difficult to preserve historical correspondences and documents hosted on non-Government servers.

This, among other things, seeks to promote transparency in governance; protecting the Nigerian cyberspace; and promotion of the Digital Nigeria agenda. It also seeks to accelerate the adoption of the second level domain (.gov.ng, .edu.ng, .mil.ng) under the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD.ng) with the main objective to eliminate the use of top-level domains for Government business and the use of private emails for official correspondences by the end of year 2022

“The Policy gives direction for the enforcement of the mandatory use of the Nigerian Government second-level domains by all Federal Public Institutions, and recommends its adoption by States and Local Governments. The scope covers the Nigerian Government 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.