The newly elected president of Nigerian Internet Registration Association, NIRA, Mrs Mary Uduma has described as lucrative, the domain name business.

Mrs Uduma who revealed this shortly after she was elected the 2nd president of the association 3 rd Annual General Meeting, AGM, at the Lagos Airport Hotels, Ikeja, said she would ensure that NIRA becomes a reference domain name registry in Africa by encouraging the government, corporate organisations and individuals to buy into the dot ng domain name.

According to her, this was only way Nigerians could benefit from the numerous opportunities provided by dot ng domain name. “I want our people to realised that there money in domain name business.

I want NIRA to become a reference domain name registry in Africa so that our people will become better of for it”, she assured adding that she would make sure that government at all levels and businesses get to migrate to dot ng domain name registry.

Mrs Uduma who completed the tenure of her predecessor as vice president following the demise of the pioneer president, Engr Ndukwe Kalu late last year said NIRA has made appreciable progress within the short period of its existence despite some financial challenges.

“ I am glad to tell you that your association has stepped out from the phobia of taking the initial steps. It may not have leapt to taking giant strides, but definite and modest progress has been made, regardless of grave financial challenges.”

She said NIRA has successfully re-delegated the administrative and the technical contact for .ng from NITDA to NIRA with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and subsequently the primary authoritative name server localized for the first time in Nigeria. According to her, the registry has moved from a registry- registrant business model to a 3R model which promotes the registration and branding of .ng by empowering registrars to market the .ng brand.

Speaking further, the NIRA boss said she has mapped out a five years strategic plan, including training, registration, accreditation of registrars and branding etcetera to take the registry to the next level
as well as using the dot ng as re-branding campaign of the federal. While counting on the support and cooperation of her board members in the task of moving NIRA forward, Mrs Uduma encouraged the general public to be on .ng and ensure that they were secured always.

Also speaking, the Board of Trustee (BOT) chairman, NIRA, Mr I.A Odeyemi extolled the virtues of Mrs Mary Uduma, describing her as capable of the position. “Mary has proved that she can manage the affairs of the association very well because she has been working with the late president. So her emergence is not a surprise to so many of us”, he said while encouraging the members to come up with suggestions that would help to move the association forward.

Meanwhile, Sunday Folayan emerged as vice president, while Mr Mohammed Rudman, Remy Nweke, Yetunde Johnson and Sola Bickersteth are board members.