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Fri, Mar

FG Direct All Public Offices To Stop Using Gmail, Yahoo Mail For Official Dealings

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In an effort to safeguard official communications emanating from public offices, and its top-level domain the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the National policy on Government domain to henceforth stop using generic that is not official. Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Pantami made this known while addressing State House Correspondents shortly after the FEC meeting chaired by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo yesterday at the State House, Abuja.


The Minister directed that all officials should desist from using the generic domain in their website and their email to the “second level under the government top-level domain”. 

Pantami stated that the use of Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail for official communications is hereby banned. 

He said, “The memo I presented is our national policy, which has been approved by the Federal Executive Council. The policy has been entitled as National Policy on the Government, Second Level Domain. 

While speaking to Journalist Pantami affirmed that “This policy has been approved, and it focuses more on mandating federal public institutions, ministries, departments, agencies, and all institutions as long as they are for the government to migrate from using the generic domain in their websites and their emails to our second-level domain under government top-level domain. 

The Minister explained that “For example, you will discover today, some government institutions will engage in official communications using private email: yahoo.com; hotmail.com, gmail.com, and it is an official communication. 

“And someone may retire or will complete his tenure or the tenure can be terminated, and he will go with the same email. And in that email, there are many official documents. 

He warned that henceforth, this will no longer be tolerated by any government official, he insisted that official emails must be deployed and the email must not be generic, it must carry dot.gov or dot. ng, he added. 

Pantami explained, “What is most important is, dot. ng, that is our national identity. There are many categories of the second-level domain, some are for military, you will see like mil. ng; a mil is a short form of Military. Dot ng for Nigeria. 

“You can see .gov.ng. gov for government and ng for Nigeria. So there are categories of the second-level domain, while our country's top-level domain.ng must be there on our websites so that whoever gets access will know that this website is from Nigeria. While for email, it must reflect the official name.’’ 

The minister revealed that this initiative was deployed to protect Nigerian cyberspace against intruders. 

Explaining further, the minister disclosed, there are so many benefits of doing that. Number one is our national security. Websites are being created in other countries without a domain name and some claim to be from Nigeria, this will go a long way in compromising our cyberspace, which cannot be ignored. 

“Two, national identity. Our national identity is key; any website from Nigeria, particularly for the government must have dot.ng. From anywhere you will know that this is a Nigerian website. 

“And it will go a long way in promoting and improving our global ranking when it comes to human development when it comes to fighting poverty and many more.  

He noted that without following such protocols, our national identity in the global arena will get lost and those genuinely looking out for correct information about our institutions would get lost and thereby reducing Nigerian ranking. 

The statement added, “Number three, global recognition. It will give us global recognition because in the assessment, they will count and discover how many institutions are from Nigeria, what have they been doing, what is their performance, what they have implemented so far. 

For transparency and building of public confidence in our institutions, this is very important to our national identity, Pantami added. 

He pointed out that public confidence is key, considering the cybercrime being committed in our space, a popularly called yahoo-yahoo is a form of generic email, saying someone would just sit in his comfort zone and steal the identity of someone to commit a crime through the use of the generic one. 

Therefore, the Minister directed that by this notice, public offices, Ministry, Department, and Agencies must key into this policy. 

He warned that it is now a national policy, and it must be patronized for all official dealings, and after closing hour, it can be shortened down or handed over to the next person taking over. 

Meanwhile, the Minister revealed that the official circular to this effect will soon be released in due course. 

He called on all government officials to have an official email that can be communicated officially in their name.

 

 

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