Have you ever wondered where our internet files are saved or whoever has authority over them.
Think again, because every country’s government has rights over the companies domiciled in those countries.
Over the weekend, Venezuelans are being asked by Adobe to download all their data off Adobe’s servers because the US government sanctioned the country.
This is a major concern if Venezuelans have all their emails and website hosted in American servers, everything will be lost in 20 days if not taken off by their respective owners.
How does this affect Nigerians.
Majority of Nigerians use either Gmail or Yahoo account with an exception of a few (like we
at https://testedtechs.com ) who use private emails. The whole country can be thrown into a mess if the USA sanctions Nigeria tomorrow, it means everyone who had relied on those email service provider will be unable to communicate with other people around the world because a President or a group of people think they shouldn’t.
If Nigerian government as an example have a fallout with the Americans, they can bar their companies from offering services to Nigerians which means, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Google and every other one will stop working in Nigeria..I don’t want to imagine how our businesses, government and security channels will all be grounded by that singular act.
This reminds me again of my meeting at NIRA sometimes ago where we’re tutored on the benefits of brandishing the Nigerian flag online by using our own Top level Domain names i.e ( .ng, .com.ng, .org.ng, .edu.ng e.t.c)
This gives us a level of control over how we communicate with other countries and ensures we cannot be tongue tied by any other country who wants us to do their bidding.
With about 99,469 Nigerian country code top-level domain names hosted in other countries, Nigeria is at risk of losing about $59.8m (N21.8bn) to capital flight this year.
This is because 98.7 per cent of the .ng domain registered by Nigerians and non-Nigerians are hosted and paid for in other countries such as the United States, the Netherlands, South Africa, Britain and Germany.
Only 1.3 per cent of the total .ng servers are domiciled in the country, statistics from the Nigeria Internet Registration Association have shown.
What would have been China’s fate if the US has control over their servers and systems.
This is high time to buy and sell the Nigerian flag to every one around the world .
Nigeria internet has an identity and it’s .ng .
Governments around the world are always looking for a competitive advantage to form allies, with which they can fight indirect wars . Internal wars are much harder to win than external hence a need for us to see beyond the brotherly hugs and fight to build our own infrastructure
You can read more on the Venezuelan internet crisis here https://www.zdnet.com/article/adobe-to-deactivate-accounts-for-all-venezuelan-users-due-to-us-sanctions/