NCC Inaugurates National IPv6 Council to Drive Nigeria’s Internet Upgrade

Nigeria has inaugurated the National Internet Protocol Version 6 Council, a body tasked with driving the country’s transition from the aging IPv4 internet standard to the next-generation IPv6 — a shift the country’s telecoms regulator describes as no longer optional.

The ceremony took place on Thursday at the Marriott Hotel in Ikeja, Lagos. Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr Aminu Maida, presided, and came with a number: IPv6 adoption in the country is around five per cent, against a global average of over 40 per cent.

“IPv6 is not optional; it is a strategic necessity for national competitiveness, security and economic sovereignty,” Maida said. He pointed to the exhaustion of IPv4 address space, the expansion of 5G, the Internet of Things, cloud services, and AI-driven applications as forces pushing legacy infrastructure to its limits.

The NCC has been working with the African Network Information Centre to build capacity across public and private sectors ahead of the transition. The council, which includes representatives from telecoms operators, enterprises, academia, and government institutions, is meant to coordinate that effort so no single stakeholder is left to drive it alone.

Key figures at the inauguration included NCC Executive Commissioner Technical Services Engr. Abraham Oshadami, National IPv6 Council President Muhammed Rudman, Executive Commissioner Stakeholder Management Barr. Rimini Makama, and Council Member Tony Emoekpere.

IPv6, developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force and ratified as an internet standard in 2017, uses 128-bit addresses — enabling roughly 3.4 × 10³⁸ unique addresses compared to IPv4’s 4.3 billion. For a country with Nigeria’s population and fast-growing digital economy, closing that 35-percentage-point gap is overdue.

Sources: Authority NG, Nigeria Communications Week