The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has urged the Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NIRA) to align with the federal government’s digital transformation agenda, saying such a move will help NIRA to fully enjoy its benefits.
Making the call when the President of NIRA, Mr. Muhammed Rudman and his team visited the Agency in Abuja to present the annual report, the Director-General of NITDA, Mal. Kashifu Inuwa, said the call on NIRA is geared towards engaging the relevant stakeholders towards the implementation of the Strategic Road Map and Action Plan (SRAP) 2021-2024 of the agency.
According to Mal. Inuwa, NITDA in its dynamism, has a lot of initiatives lined up for implementation and it is necessary for relevant stakeholders such as NiRA to keep up with the pace of the Agency by promptly keying into these initiatives.
“At NITDA, we are re-branding and re-calibrating ourselves with the new aspirations and realities of the digital ecosystem thereby going through so many transformations and you really need to key in and align in what we do,” he said.
The NITDA DG while stating that the Agency has set targets for internal stakeholders and special purpose vehicles of the Agency to re-align them with the repositioning of the Agency, urged NIRA to come on board in the implementation of some of the initiatives of the SRAP document.
“We don’t want to come up with regulations that will take over the MOU we have with you so we really need to sit down together and put you in our plans,” he added.
Meanwhile, the NITDA DG has assured NIRA of its continued support, disclosing that the Agency’s commitment to enhancing the promotion and adoption of the association’s policy by mandating Data Protection Compliance Organisations (DPCO’s) and public service institutions to comply with the ‘.ng’ domain policy remained.
“Our Digital Transformation Technical Working Group (DTTWG) committee has written to 500 Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDA’s) on the need to comply with the ‘.ng’ policy and we have inaugurated about 100,” he assured.
Responding, the chairman of NIRA, Mr. Rudman in his presentation detailing the Association’s Annual Report highlighted some of the association’s challenges and efforts in increasing their revenue for the development of the digital ecosystem and the Nation at large. He however gave assurance of the association’s commitment to aligning with NITDA’s strategic initiatives.