Nigeria loses 3.76 billion naira to poor domain name

Nigeria's website owners have lost 3.76 billion naira as a result of poor domain name adoption.

Purchase of foreign domain names such as .com, .co.uk, .org and .net has resulted in the loss of 3.76 billion naira in the last five years.

According to news reports, the figure is expected to be more than double in another five years if the trend is not checked given the increasing level of Internet awareness and usage in the country.

Mr. Ope Odunsa, Chief Operating Officer of Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) confirmed the figure, adding that over 752 million naira is paid annually by Nigerians to service the estimated 600,000 registered foreign domain names in the country.

Adding that It costs about 5,000 naira to purchase a domain name.

He expressed dissatisfaction with the development and urged the country's citizens, government agencies and corporate bodies to be proud of, its .NG domain name.

Reports have also revealed most government officials have their electronic mail designated at foreign domains like Yahoo!, Google, etc.

“The Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, had recently confirmed that out of the 54,000 indigenous email accounts created for government officials in the federal ministries, departments and agencies, only four per cent were in use,” a statement said.

In a country of over 170 million people, only 26,000 domain names were registered with NiRA at the end of 2013.