By Emma Elebeke

The long awaited Cyber security law may soon be a reality if the worlds of House committee Committee on Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Hon. Ibrahim Shehu Gusau is anything to go by.

This is as Hon. Gusau, has disclosed the preparedness of the law makers at ensuring that the cyber security bill is passed into law before the end of this legislative year.

He made the pledge when the Executive Board of the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) led by the Vice President, Mr. Sunday Folayan, paid him a courtesy visit in his office.

The bill on cyber security he said has passed the first reading while the committee is working assiduously to ensure that the bill scales through the relevant readings and processes to make it a law that Nigerians would be proud of.

When signed into law, Hon. Gusau said the cyber security will assist the nation to enhance it’s image online and globally.
“It has been read the first time and is on the second reading before it will be sent to the Committee for review,” he said.

Hon. Gasau noted that the law would also be of immense help to the Nigeria Internet Registration Association in creating the needed trust for its mandate to manage the nation’s country code Top Level Domain (TLD) name, .ng by Nigerians and the world.

While assuring NIRA board of his committee’s support, he said “We are going to pass the cyber security bill during the life of this session,” and implored them to step up the sensitization of Nigerians on the efficacy of .ng, stressing that NIRA can bank on his committee for support.

“You should expect to get more support from us and the publicity of the .ng domain and NIRA has not been encouraging”,”he added, urging the organization to do more.

He underscored the importance of media campaign, which he said should be taken seriously to promote the .ng brand, just as he said that his office should be seen as an extended NIRA office.

Earlier in his remarks, the leader of the delegation and NIRA’s Vice President, Mr. Sunday Folayan, said that NIRA is a multi-stakeholder-based organization, which is made of three categories, namely the registry, registrars and registrants.