SysAdmin Journal · Africa

AFRINIC restricts attendance to the Annual General Members Meeting (AGMM) even ONLINE 😐

Ish Sookun — Tue, 31 May 2022 19:23:43 +0000

The Africa Internet Summit 2022 is being held on 30th May – 3rd June at Le Méridien Hotel, Pte aux Piments in Mauritius. The AFRINIC Annual General Members Meeting (AGMM) is scheduled on the last day of the Africa Internet Summit, i.e Friday 3rd June 2022.

Many AFRINIC Resource Members look forward to this meeting and they travel every year to attend the meeting in person. Others who cannot make it can still participate and ask questions via the online conference system.

I have been attending AFRINIC Meetings since 2017. I have attended a few meetings online and two of the meetings in-person. I have attended the meetings as a Resource Member since 2019. I have never seen AFRINIC restricting Resource Members from attending the AGMM in the past.

Today, in a email the AFRINIC Legal Team informed members that due to the prevailing sanitary protocol in Mauritius, only one representative of a Resource Member will be allowed to attend the meeting in-person. However, to the astonishment and incomprehension of several members, the legal team also stated that only one representative per Resource Member will be allowed to join the meeting via the online conference system.

Several members have raised questions over this statement. I questioned the legal team about it and in response the AFRINIC Communications team stated that —

Article 12.14(9) provides, inter-alia as follows - "Corporations may act by representative. A corporate body, which is a Member, may appoint a representative to attend an Annual General Members’ Meeting on its behalf in the same manner as that in which it could appoint a proxy.”.

The AFRINIC Bylaws, from which the above article is quoted, does not state that a corporate body, which is a Member, can be represented by one person only.

Nigerian government suspends Twitter operations in the country

Ish Sookun — Sat, 05 Jun 2021 08:07:14 +0000

On the 2^nd June 2021, Twitter deleted a post¹ by the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari², in which the latter said:

Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War.

Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.

As a result of Twitter's action, the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture issued a press release³ in which it stated that the Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the micro-blogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria.

The Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria.
— Fed Min of Info & Cu (@FMICNigeria) June 4, 2021

I receive daily security reports on the attacks on critical national infrastructure, and it is very clear that those behind them want this administration to fail. Whoever wants the destruction of the system will soon have the shock of their lives. We’ve given them enough time.
— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) June 1, 2021

However, it is unclear until now as to what does the suspension mean, since Twitter is still accessible in Nigeria.

Update

Twitter is inaccessible⁴ on many large ISP networks in Nigeria, including on the biggest operators, MTN.
A press statement by the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators (ALTON) of Nigeria stated that its members have received formal instructions from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to suspend access to Twitter.

AFRINIC Board Elections

Ish Sookun — Sun, 20 Sep 2020 15:08:04 +0000

The Africa Internet Summit 2020 was held from 14 to 18 September 2020. The event initially scheduled to take place in the Democratic Republic of Congo in June 2020, had to be postponed and then changed to an online event due to the pandemic.

AIS'20 Online kicked off on Monday with opening remarks by AFNOG Secretariat, Isatou Jah followed by a welcome message by Prof. Nii Quaynor.

The highlights of the summit were the Policy Discussions which took place on Thursday 17 September and the AFRINIC Board Elections that were held on the last day of the summit, i.e Friday 18 September. Electronic voting had begun two weeks ago and it ended on Friday.

The candidates for the Board Elections were as follows:

Seat 3 (Indian Ocean)

1. Kaleem Usmani
2. Subramanian Moonesamy

Seat 4 (Central Africa)

1. Serge Kabwika Ilunga

Seat 6 (Eastern Africa)

1. Abdalla Omari
2. Fiona Asonga

Seat 8 (Non-Regional)

1. Alan Levin
2. Benjamin Eshun
3. Jacob Kwaku Odame-Baiden

Results

The results of elections are as follows:

Board - Seat 4 (Central Africa), Serge Kabwika Ilunga, to serve a three-year term
Board - Seat 6 (Eastern Africa), Abdalla Omari, to serve a two-year term.
Board - Seat 3 (Indian Ocean), Subramanian Moonesamy, to serve a three-year term
Board - Seat 8 (Non-Regional), Benjamin Eshun, to serve a three-year term.

I was particularly interested to see the turn-out for the Indian Ocean region. Candidate Kaleem Usmani is the Head of CERT-MU and has always been elusive to my questions. That is not something I would expect from someone holding a high position in a government agency and being on government payroll; especially when «providing information and assistance to its constituents» remain the mission of the Computer Emergency Response Team of Mauritius (CERT-MU).

Screenshot from the AFRINIC AGMM live stream on YouTube

I was not surprised at all and very happy to see Subramanian Moonesamy (SM) win the Indian Ocean seat. He secured the position of AFRINIC Board Director for the next three years.

Africa Internet Summit (AIS'20) registration opens

Ish Sookun — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 06:44:26 +0000

The physical meeting for the Africa Internet Summit 2020 which was due in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, had to be re-scheduled into a virtual meeting because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting will be held online from the 14th to 18th September 2020.

Registration for the meeting is now open.

People who previously registered when the physical meeting was announced have to register again.

Elections

AIS'20 will hold several elections, two of which usually draws the community's attention:

AFRINIC Board Election
AFRINIC Policy Development Working Group (PDWG) Co-chairs Election

The Board election will be conducted through electronic voting that will run from the 5th till the 18th of September 2020. The final candidate slate for the election will be published by AFRINIC staff on the 16th of August 2020.

The criteria to vote in the AFRINIC Board and Governance Committee elections are:

Any AFRINIC Resource Member in good standing,
All Registered Members.

The election for the PDWG Co-chairs is usually carried in-place during the physical meeting and all attendees are allowed to vote. However, as this year the election will be held online, the criteria for eligible voters had to be reviewed. Therefore, the AFRINIC CEO, Eddy Kayihura, requested the community's feedback & comments about the same on the AFRINIC Resource Policy Discussions mailing list.

Yesterday, the Chairman of the AFRINIC Board of Directors, Dr. Christian D. Bope, informed the community about the approval of the election process for this year based on the feedback & comments received.

The criteria to vote in the PDWG Co-chairs election are:

The intended registrant must have completed an online registration,
The intended registrant must have been on the Resource Policy Discussion mailing list (rpd@afrinic.net) for at least 6 months immediately prior to his/her online registration for the meeting.

AFRINIC WHOIS database tampered?

Ish Sookun — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 14:55:21 +0000

In a recent official communiqué, AFRINIC, the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Africa, wished its members and the community a happy new year while giving updates about some changes in the different committees.

In the same email, AFRINIC CEO, Eddy Kayihura, informed the community that following allegations of fraudulent manipulation of the AFRINIC WHOIS database, the matter has been referred to the Central Criminal Investigation Division (CCID) of the Mauritius Police Force for further investigation. Also, due to the serious nature of the allegation, an employee of AFRINIC, whose name has been cited in the allegation, has been immediately dismissed on grounds of very serious professional misconduct.

AFRINIC is working to "restore" the WHOIS database accuracy, as per the email.

Preps for the Developers Conference 2020...

Ish Sookun — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 18:53:47 +0000

Preparations for the Developers Conference 2020 have begun. The date, location and theme have been announced.

The next Developers Conference, simply dubbed DevCon 2020, will be held on 2 - 4 April at the Caudan Arts Centre in Port-Louis, Mauritius. This time the conference theme is Comics, which I am pretty sure requires no further explanation as to what to expect.

A few of our regular supporters have already joined as sponsors, while others have expressed their intention to back us financially in the coming days. The conference cannot happen without the help and support of the sponsors and the commitment to support the DevCon organizers every year is really appreciated. May the force be with you & your organizations prosper!

Developers Conference is an event by the community for the community. We should not forget this. Everyone's help is welcomed and appreciated. In fact, next year we're aiming big and the more backers we have the merrier!

If you believe there are organizations out there that can support us please share the conference brochure with them. The brochure explains about the conference, the different sponsorship tiers and ways in which an organization can help in making DevCon 2020 another great & awesome conference!

Meanwhile, you out there, if you've been to the Developers Conference before, then how about submitting a paper this time? Take the leap and do it!

Africa Internet Summit

Ish Sookun — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 12:34:23 +0000

The Africa Internet Summit (AIS) is an annual, regional, multi-stakeholder ICT conference. It is the pinnacle educational and business ICT event in Africa where key players in the Internet industry can interact with the global Internet community.

The first summit was held in Gambia in 2012. It consisted of seminars, workshops, tutorials, conference sessions, and other forums for sharing ICT knowledge within the African region.

AIS'19 was hosted by NFT Consult in Uganda at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel from the 9^th to 21^st June 2019.

I attended the Summit along with my colleague Eddy Lareine.

Somalia plans to block social media ahead of national high school exams

Ish Sookun — Thu, 16 May 2019 10:44:00 +0000

The Minister of Education of Somalia, Hon. Abdullahi Godah Barre, announced on the 13^th of May 2019 that social media networks will not be accessible during the national high school exams that have been postponed for the end of May.
‏

Wasaaradda waxbarashada Soomaaliya markay la tashatay bah wadaagta waxbarashada waxaan go’aan ku gaarnay in la joojiyo imtixaankii ka socday dalka islamarkana la baabi iyo natiijada madooyinkii la galay. pic.twitter.com/1o3mp7IrG6
— Hon. Abdullahi Godah Barre (@Godahbarre) May 13, 2019

The exams that started on the 11^th of May had to be cancelled after reports emerged that exams papers have been leaked and are even being sold & shared on social media platforms. The Ministry of Education thus took the decision to postpone the exams which are now scheduled for the 27^th until the 31^st of May 2019.

The decision to postpone exams has sparked riots in Mogadishu as thousands of students are directly concerned.

BREAKING Education Minister Abdullahi Godah and police boss' attempts to address rioting students in #Mogadishu fail after the students shouted them down #Somalia pic.twitter.com/ePX5XqXXwH
— DalsanTV (@DalsanTv) May 14, 2019

Seif Magango, the Regional Director of Amnesty, commented that the ministry should focus on securing the integrity of exams instead of taking drastic measures that hurt the freedom of expression.

Internet shutdown in Benin

Ish Sookun — Wed, 01 May 2019 19:00:00 +0000

Benin's government blocked access to the internet ahead of the general elections on Sunday 28 April 2019.

Initially only social networks were blocked and users turned to VPNs to be able to access services such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, and Instagram. Hours later a full internet shutdown in the country was reported.

Update: most of #Benin is now OFFLINE and disconnected from the world. What started as an hour of internet shutdown continued to be 7 hours of social media shutdown and now is a complete and total blackout!! #KeepItOn #BeninBlackOut #BeninShutDown https://t.co/KnDMg6Wi7O
— Berhan Taye (@btayeg) April 28, 2019

Confirmed: All major internet providers now disconnected in #Benin on day of scheduled parliamentary elections; incident ongoing #BeninShutdown #KeepItOn https://t.co/Y94ipLiLsv pic.twitter.com/a5kfChnJvL
— NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) April 28, 2019

Last year Benin's government made headlines when officials proposed a law to tax the use of social media. The decision was reversed after the government faced both local and international outcry. Digital rights advocates lobbied against the levy using the hashtag #Taxepamesmo (“Don’t tax my megabytes”).