Govts., MDAs Register on .ng, Host Servers Abroad

Federal government’s directive to its ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to register their website on the country’s top level domain name .ng by the end of this year has recorded some level of success, but regrettably their web and emails servers are hosted outside of the country, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.

Investigations revealed that most federal government MDAs and state governments are currently hosting their web and email servers outside of the country, which makes mockery of the aim of the directive to register on .ng.

It was gathered that just recently, Lagos state government which previously hosted its web and email servers in the country had to relocate it to a foreign country, citing trust issues as reason.

It would be recalled that federal government gave state governments’ ministries and parastatals as well as local governments in the country till August this year to register their websites on the country’s top level domain name .ng,

To meet the deadline, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is collaborating with Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) to ensure a smooth migration for the states and local governments.

And for the federal government ministries, departments and agencies compliance to the directive, a steering committee was set up under the supervision of head of service of the federation with Galaxy Backbone, the federal government registrar for the migration, to work out modalities for the migration.

Stakeholder in the information and communications technology have frowned at this development arguing that such action is retrogressive to development of ICT sector in the country.

Mohammed Rudman, managing director, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) said that the implication of such action is that email exchange among staff of those ministries or departments are not private as it will have to leave the country to the country where the server is hosted and in the process could be tapped by agents of the government of the country.

He added that it also encourages capital flight as cost of such service will be paid in foreign currency; as well as create employment for foreigners at the expense of Nigerians.

“More so, if by any means there is cut or tsunami that damages undersea cable that provides connectivity between the host network and the ministry or agency, staff cannot communicate through the email,” he said.

It was learnt that presently, there are several Data centres in the country that have attended international certification that can host web and email servers for governments, ministries and departments thereby creating employment and encourage local companies for the development of the country.