Ever since the lunch of the new Nigeria National Carrier, Nigeria Air by the Minister of State for Aviation, Sen. Hadi Sirika, at the Farnborough International Airshow, London, the carrier has attracted lots of criticism both positive and negative criticism. From logo design saga to tagline and now the carrier domain name.
It was reposted recently by a tech blog that one Olumayowa Elegbede may be N48 million richer as he bought the supposed domain name for the new national carrier.
Olumayowa Elegbede bought the different versions of the National carrier domain name from NigeriaAir.ng to NigeriaAir.com.ng and then put it up for sale as high as $66,000 (N48,000,000).
Many Nigerians hailed him for been sharp enough to buy the names. Some questioned the brand management team for allowing such a mistake to occur. Some Nigerians questioned why the minister unveiled the name, logo and tagline of the Nigeria National carrier without securing the domain name in the first place.
Some tech experts began to profess solution upon a solution. Some advised the government to go for .gov.ng which is only reserved for the government agencies. Since it is a private sector affair, using .gov.ng will not make any sense. What about .org.ng? ooh! .org is not a top level domain name.
Some Nigerians had to force the President of the Nigeria Internet Registration Association, Rev’ Sunday Folayan to open the law book and let the world including Olumayowa Elegbede to see what the law said about buying and reselling domain names. And he responded with speed of light with the law from all to see and read.
Super-long post, especially if you are concerned or you are in the Domain Name business.
Many friends and associates have been tagging me up and down on social media, that the promoters of the Airline-in-formation were not smart enough to pre-register their digital asset, and that some smart-alec registered nigeriaair.ng, nigeriaair.com.ng and all its variants, and is offering it for sale at N48m or more. He said
In the midst of this domain saga, the ministry of aviation has come out clean to tell Nigerians and the world at large that they did not leave any stone unturn. As a matter of fact, Nigeria Air has a domain name which was reserved prior to the unveiling of the Name in London.
Further to the incorporation of the company with nominal directors the domain name www.flynigeriaair.ng has been reserved and will be made active very soon as part of the project evolution and marketing process. Some people whose only desire is to steal Nigeria’s commonwealth by hawking domain names will not a get a kobo from the people of Nigeria. They can eat their domain names.
A quick check on the proposed domain name FlyNigeriaAir.ng by Sagetravels.com, it shows that the domain is active and under construction. It seems to us that the developers are working at the backend putting things in order and in the right place and will very soon the website will be active and ready to use.
At the end of it all, this shows that Olumayowa Elegbede has lost both the N48 Million and the money he used to buy the domain names.
I can confidently say that Olumayowa Elegbede and others are the ones that are not smart. I can also say that Olumayowa Elegbede is not a frequent flyer or a good tech guru. It would have occurred to him that most of the airlines in the world have this “fly” prefix before the airline name.
Apart from using the flynigeriaair.ng, the government can still get the domain name from Olumayowa Elegbede without paying a dime. Olumayowa will go to jail for a minimum of 2 years. And may also be required to pay N5 million or more in fines. Given the registration date and tough task of proving ownership of that brand name, Cybercrime Act 2015 (Section 16) makes this a cybersquatting case.
