It is either the .NG registry is down again, or they have deleted dozens of .ng domains or have messed-up their respective DNS records. Any one with useful information?

Those guys are so incompetent. They have actually moved over to a new platform. This they did without notifying even accredited registrars. During the migration period, the nameserver settings of many domains were reset to Nira's default. That is the cause of the downtime affecting many domains. Annoyingly, since the accredited registrars have not been given login credentials to access the new system, nothing can be done at present.

A whois lookup shows that my domain's Namesevers are now set to:

Domain Information
Created: 13 May 2009
Expires: 13 Jun 2009
Modified: 13 May 2009
Status: Active
Registrar: nitda
Name Servers:
pdns1.nic.net.ng
pdns2.nic.net.ng

Oh Dear. How irresponsible can a domain registry be? Of course, I saw that they had migrated to a new platform but I had no means of logging in to check the domains and their settings. To learn that they did this to "accredited registrars" comes as a shock. What incompetence. They're putting legitimate businesses in serious jeopardy! How do I gather the courage to promote .NG domains henceforth when things are done so shabbily?

Err, The domains are now premium, you have to pay for them to be active. We seem to be given the login details, but most of the time their servers are either inaccessible or I cant figure my way around their panel if it is, because its slow.

Premium so what? What irresponsible registry would take such major decision about disabling old domains without major announcements and forewarnings for users to take corrective action? It should have been up to the .ng users to decide whether to keep their domains by paying or cross their fingers and allow the registry to disable the domains. Was there an email warning about this mess? No. Was their a forewarning on their website about this? Another No. If even "accredited registrars" can be affected by their whimsical action, then there is no hope. Arrant nonsense. (ref to Registrar's action)

Well they even deleted the domains we paid and registered for last week. Just realised now that now. I have no idea was going on with them.

I have no regrets sitting on the fence and watching them mess around with the registrar thing. I am skeptical about the whole registrar business. They are proving me right with this latest stunt. My only regrets are the existing domains registered with them.

No NG domain has been deleted of disabled. NIRA said it will delete domains that have not moved under an accredited registrar, 30days after their new system goes live. That is why they have set expiration of all domains to the 13th of June. Besides many NG domains that were registered for free are still working.

You can use a whois script to access the status of any NG domain. Their whois server address is:

whois.nic.net.ng

sincerely .ng has been a torn in my flesh 'cos it has made me to lose many more deep pocket customers because of the fact they cannot register a domain for me, a .gov.ng for a local government of that matter after going through all the process. Twice i have tried to register in December 2008 as free and also april 28, 2009 when i had to pay again to register the same domain. I am really disappointed, the most annoying thing is that your mails to the registrar@register.net.ng are not always replied. For God when are we going to get it right in this country. Is it prayers or what.
I have learnt my lesson and which i think we all must have learnt and the only solution to it is 'never promise a client .ng'
it is really unfortunate.
Is things a country of our dreams?
Is this how they are going to treat many of us that have decided to use it as our Unique selling point?
Is is now a crime to be identified with .ng?
many quetions than answers

Seton:

sincerely .ng has been  a torn in my flesh 'cos it has made me to lose many more deep pocket customers because of the fact they cannot register a domain for me, a .gov.ng for a local government of that matter after going through all the process. Twice i have tried to register in December 2008 as free and also april 28, 2009 when i had to pay again to register the same domain. I am really disappointed, the most annoying thing is that your mails to the registrar@register.net.ng are not always replied. For God when are we going to get it right in this country. Is it prayers or what.
I have learnt my lesson and which i think we all must have learnt and the only solution to it is 'never promise a client .ng'
it is really unfortunate.
Is things a country of our dreams?
Is this how they are going to treat many of us that have decided to use it as our Unique selling point?
Is is now a crime to be identified with .ng?
many quetions than answers

.gov.ng domains are meant for local governments as well. Though they are mostly being used by Federal Ministries, Parastatals and the Presidency. You probably failed to convince them that you were legitimately representing the local government.

NIRA did not delete any domains.

True, the disruption was caused when domain names were being moved from the old system to a newer one. During the migration those domains were adversely affected that initially stood on shaky ground. Let me explain. During the old registration system, registrars had the option to register using either "simple" servers or "advanced" servers. In the latter case, they had to provide DNS (Domain Name Servers) themselves. Most reputable registrars did that, but others chose the "simple" servers, which understandably was easier because you did not fall into the tricky and more complicated 'trap' of the "Advanced" method.

Now when the domain names were transited to the new system, naturally only those with DNS (which all domains need) moved over without a hitch.

So you see, it was not entirely NIRA's fault.

I am one of the .ng Registrars. I was initially flustered myself but soon realized I had my faults as well.

So what NIRA is now doing is trying to identify which domain belonged to which registrar and getting them over to the new one. Recognize that this is not an easy task granted that .ng domain registration was a "free for all" before now and hundreds of people had been "registrars". Identifying names to transit to 29 accredited registrars is not a mean (manual) feat.

I can confirm that NIRA .ng domain registration is now live and registration is instant. I know, because I have begun to use it.

OK, I thought I should chip in this so that people can have a bit more hope

Hope this helps.

Seton:

sincerely .ng has been a torn in my flesh 'cos it has made me to lose many more deep pocket customers because of the fact they cannot register a domain for me, a .gov.ng for a local government of that matter after going through all the process. Twice i have tried to register in December 2008 as free and also april 28, 2009 when i had to pay again to register the same domain. I am really disappointed, the most annoying thing is that your mails to the registrar@register.net.ng are not always replied. For God when are we going to get it right in this country. Is it prayers or what.
I have learnt my lesson and which i think we all must have learnt and the only solution to it is 'never promise a client .ng'
it is really unfortunate.
Is things a country of our dreams?
Is this how they are going to treat many of us that have decided to use it as our Unique selling point?
Is is now a crime to be identified with .ng?
many quetions than answers

Hi there, I understand your feelings exactly. I too have received flaks from clients over the .ng domain.
It's better now. I'm optimistic that you can now register a .ng domain instantly. Like I said in an earlier post, I did a .edu.ng and it was visible in DNS in 4 hours! I think that's quite an improvement, don't you think?

Hi,

Who are these registrars and where are they listed? Any one of them around?

Yup, I for one

See our site here: http://netregit.com.ng

Mr Agboifo,

Thanks for your response. Before you posted I already contacted your guys at http://netregit.com.ng. I told them I needed to transfer some .ng domains and they asked me to send the domains which i promptly did. Since then I have not heard from them. I had even sent them three reminder emails and yet no reply. They appear to be irresponsible.

I am presently considering using another registrar from the list given me by Mr. Kalu.

Irresponsible?  Hmm, strong.

Anyhow, if you followed the Contact us link from http://netregit.com.ng you would notice that you can create a Support Ticket.

In any case, your reply (and your desired list of domains) were not received I can assure you.

Could you please send them again, by simply replying the email you were sent requesting them. Or please let me know to which email you sent your replies. Write me at info at netregit dot com dot ng

Many thanks

Hi,

It might interest you that the whole process started with Ticket ID: 732294 and my emails has been going to support@netorb.net.ng. It is surprising, that you have not been getting my mails, because you responded to my earlier mails twice on 1st June. You might need to check your mail/ticketing system that refused to deliver mails after those two mails.

Regards.

Hi,
I checked the Support ticket and the last response was from us (June 1).

However, I see a possible cause of the confusion. The system says of the support ticket you created: "Not a Registered Client". The reason is that though we enabled the system to receive initial support tickets for initial enquiries, you would need to register for a continuous follow-up. I'm very sorry for this inconvenience, but it does help us keep records.

Would you mind registering and updating the ticket with the domain names? Otherwise, like I said earlier, simply send an ordinary email to info at netorb dot net dot ng

Many thanks!

Thanks.

I had already forwarded my earlier mails to info at netregit dot com dot ng. May be you need to have a way of letting your customer know that they need to register after 3 posts in any of your responses.