Lagos — National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Nigerian Internet Re-gistration Association (NiRA), yesterday in Abuja, signed a memorandum of understanding MoU for management of the nation's web domain.

The address of the country's web domain is .ng. The MOU gave NiRA the sole authority to administer the Nigerian Country Code Top Level Domain (cctld).ng.

Professor Cleopas Angaye, NITDA Director General, said at theceremony, that "with this development, all government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) should take measure to establish their presence on the web."MDA's should ensure that any existing web sites are migrated to the country's top level .ng domain. Section 17(4) of the Information Technology Act makes it an offence for anyone to disregard such guidelines issued under the act," he said, adding that NiRA would facilitate the tracking of "419" mails emanating from the country.

Mr Ndukwe Kalu, NiRA President, said the Association would work to ensure that the .ng domain competed favourably with other domains globally and appealed to Nigerians both at home and in the Diaspora, whom he claimed owned over a million domains, to migrate to the .ng domain.

"The .ng domain will present a platform for an internet revolution on the African continent," he said.Kalu said the network would have multiple servers hosted in serval points, both in and outside the country to ensureoptimal operation.