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For those who have not followed the story, the African Network Information Centre better known as AfriNIC is the body responsible for distributing IP addresses across the African continent. It was created with hope, run by a dedicated community, and once stood as a symbol of Africa’s digital awakening. Today, it lies broken. Paralyzed by lawsuits. Weakened by internal conflict. Forgotten by many of the institutions that should have defended it. What began as a visionary project for regional digital sovereignty has become one of the most alarming cases of institutional collapse in Africa’s Internet history. And yet, almost no one is talking about it. the African public remains largely unaware. Mainstream media has barely covered it. There has been no uproar. No public debate. No sense of urgency. But those of us watching closely know that this is not just a story about IP addresses. It is a story about silence. About vulnerability. About a continent that built something for itself — and then left it to fall. This is the AfriNIC autopsy. And it must be read.
At the Beginning, There Was AfriNIC. A Project Built on Hope
In the early 2000s, Africa stood at a decisive moment in its digital journey. The World Summit on the Information Society was taking shape. Conversations about the digital divide were intensifying. African leaders, experts, and advocates were no longer satisfied with simply being connected. They wanted to shape the rules.
It was in this context that a bold idea emerged. Africa needed its own Internet registry. A structure that could manage the allocation of IP addresses across the continent. A body that could assert Africa’s technical independence and ensure that digital resources were governed by Africans for Africans. The idea first took root in 1997 in Kuala Lumpur during a side meeting at an international Internet event. A small group of African pioneers began discussing the possibility of a regional registry. Their vision was clear. Africa should no longer depend entirely on institutions based outside the continent to manage critical Internet infrastructure.
One year later, in December 1998, that vision gained structure. In Cotonou, Benin, Pierre Dandjinou, then ICT advisor for UNDP, convened a key meeting. He brought together engineers, diplomats, and development professionals from across Africa. That gathering became a founding moment. It laid the groundwork for a shared project that would bring African stakeholders into the heart of Internet governance.
From that meeting emerged a dedicated working group. Their mission was to design an appropriate structure, define a sustainable model, and build consensus around the political legitimacy of a future registry. This was not just a technical experiment. It was a collective effort to reclaim agency. A way to ensure Africa would not be a passive recipient in the digital revolution. It was a declaration of intent. Africa would build its own infrastructure and write its own rules.
The Architects of a Dream
AfriNIC was not built by one leader or a single institution. It was the result of a pan-African collaboration, carried by a handful of visionary minds who saw that Internet governance could not be outsourced forever.
At the center of this effort was Professor Nii Quaynor, a Ghanaian computer scientist widely regarded as the father of the African Internet. He brought a calm but firm leadership style, grounded in technical depth and long-term vision. His advocacy went beyond protocol. He knew that control over digital infrastructure was the next frontier of sovereignty.
Alongside him stood Pierre Ouédraogo, one of the most respected voices in Francophone Africa’s digital landscape. With his background in engineering and his strong links to international institutions, he helped bridge languages, technical standards, and regional realities. His presence gave the project a legitimacy that few others could offer.
Mohamed Diop, a Senegalese engineer and tireless advocate for technical cooperation, became a key figure in the regional coordination forums. Known for his sharp analysis and clear communication, he would later represent Africa within global Internet governance circles.
Alain Aina, from Benin, brought unmatched technical rigor. He had already been instrumental in launching AfNOG, the African Network Operators Group. Through that platform, he trained hundreds of engineers and systems administrators across the continent. At AfriNIC, he would hold several key roles, including Technical Director and interim CEO. His influence went far beyond any official title. For many, he became the anchor of operational credibility within the African Internet ecosystem.
The circle grew over time. Kossivi Dokoue from Togo helped bring the Internet to his country during his time at Togo Telecom, then moved on to the national regulator where he oversaw numbering and quality of service. Alan Barrett from South Africa, a co-founder of one of the first commercial ISPs in the country, later became AfriNIC’s CEO from 2015 to 2019. He helped stabilize and professionalize the institution during a critical period.
These men did not seek the spotlight. They worked quietly, often without formal recognition, while many African governments still considered Internet issues to be purely technical. But they knew better. They knew that IP address allocation was not just a question of numbers. It was a matter of sovereignty and control.Years before the term digital sovereignty became fashionable, these pioneers were already laying its foundation.
The Foundational Decade. From Johannesburg to Port Louis
The decision on where to host AfriNIC was not just technical. It was deeply political. Multiple countries expressed interest in becoming the host of Africa’s new Internet registry. South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, and Mauritius all stepped forward with different advantages.
In the end, Mauritius offered the right combination. A bilingual and legally stable environment, international connectivity, and a commitment to host the administrative office rent-free for the first two years. More than just a logistical choice, it was a gesture toward neutrality. The aim was to avoid concentrating power in any single regional bloc.
The structure was designed to reflect pan-African balance. Mauritius would house the administrative and legal headquarters. South Africa would manage the core technical infrastructure. Egypt would serve as the backup site. Ghana would lead training and capacity development.
In February 2005, AfriNIC became fully operational. Just two months later, ICANN granted it official status as the fifth Regional Internet Registry in the world. It started with a team of two. Within ten years, AfriNIC had grown to over sixty staff members across training, operations, government relations, cybersecurity, and public policy.
At the center of this growth was Adiel Akplogan, a Togolese engineer educated between Africa and Europe. As AfriNIC’s first Chief Executive Officer, he had a clear mandate. Build a strong institution from scratch. Recruit a capable team. Connect with the global Internet governance ecosystem. And ensure that African voices were not sidelined in decisions over digital resources.
AfriNIC made swift progress. It formalized internal processes, developed a reliable policy framework, and earned the trust of the broader Internet community. But beneath that progress lay a structural vulnerability.
Although AfriNIC held continental importance, it was never an international organization backed by heads of state or protected by intergovernmental treaties. And that was intentional. To meet ICANN’s ICP-2 criteria, the policy that defines how Regional Internet Registries must operate. AfriNIC had to be community-led, non-profit, open, and regionally representative. It could not be a government body. Its authority had to come from its members, not from political endorsement.
As a result, AfriNIC was registered under Mauritian law as a civil, non-governmental entity. It had no legal immunity. It was not protected by the African Union. It had no treaty-based guarantees. In the end, it was a critical piece of infrastructure without a political shield. A grassroots institution responsible for digital sovereignty, but left to stand alone in the storm.
And as AfriNIC’s responsibilities grew, cracks began to show. Oversight of IP allocations became more difficult. Verification systems lagged. Internal tensions surfaced. What had begun as a visionary structure now found itself vulnerable to pressure from within and without.
The WHOIS database, intended as a tool for transparency, began to raise concerns. Community members questioned how IP blocks were being allocated, whether procedures were followed, and who held real decision-making power.
The departure of Adiel Akplogan, who moved on to a senior role at ICANN, left a vacuum. His leadership style had held the institution together. His ethical clarity and technical credibility had kept things steady. With his departure, AfriNIC was heading into a turbulent period. And the governance model that once gave it strength would soon reveal its deepest weaknesses.
A Colossus With Feet of Clay
The story begins in December 2019 with an internal shock that would shake the credibility of the African registry. Ernest Byaruhanga, a Ugandan engineer and one of the earliest pioneers of AfriNIC, was dismissed for gross misconduct after revelations of a vast IPv4 diversion scheme. Byaruhanga was no minor staff member. He was the second person ever hired by AfriNIC back in 2004, trained in the Netherlands to work alongside Adiel Akplogan in establishing the new registry. Over the years he climbed through every position except the CEO role, and his knowledge of AfriNIC’s inner workings was unparalleled. His dismissal was therefore both a scandal and a revelation. It exposed how fragile internal controls had been and how vulnerable a continental registry could become when placed in the hands of a small circle of insiders.
Investigations revealed that blocks of addresses had slipped out of the registry and onto the international secondary market. These blocks, once allocated, could not simply be clawed back at the stroke of a pen. AfriNIC referred the matter to the police and prosecutor’s office in Mauritius, but the deeper problem was institutional. Unlike a commercial company, a Regional Internet Registry cannot instantly revoke resources without following strict procedures.
Every Regional Internet Registry in the world operates under the same due process framework. When a violation is suspected, an official notice is sent to the member with 30 days to respond. If the problem persists, a second warning is sent after 60 days. At 90 days the contract may be terminated and the resources frozen in the WHOIS database. Once frozen, the addresses cannot be routed. They enter a quarantine period, lasting six months to a year, before they are returned to the available pool. This is not bureaucratic excess but deliberate design, ensuring that global routing remains stable even in the face of disputes. Yet it also means that in cases of massive fraud, there is no quick remedy.
AfriNIC followed this same process. With APNIC’s assistance, it conducted a sweeping audit that uncovered more than 2 million diverted addresses. Over 1 million were placed into quarantine, but many had already been leased or sold to third party operators far beyond AfriNIC’s reach. This was the first red flag, a registry left without legal instruments, without continental treaties or cross border mechanisms to support enforcement. Where in other regions such findings might have triggered parliamentary inquiries or intergovernmental alerts, in Africa the silence was deafening. AfriNIC continued to operate, but weakened and increasingly exposed.
It was in this climate that Eddy Kayihura was appointed Chief Executive Officer in November 2019. A Rwandan engineer with more than 20 years in the ICT sector, Kayihura had led the digital transformation of the Bank of Kigali and served in management at the Broadband System Corporation, Rwanda’s national broadband provider. Trained in Rwanda and the United States, with an MBA in international business, he was seen as both a technologist and a modern manager. His mandate was clear, restore AfriNIC’s legitimacy and defend the continent’s digital sovereignty. By 2022 he was touring more than 20 countries, promoting IPv6, engaging members, and building confidence. But before these reforms could mature, he was thrust into the most dangerous crisis of AfriNIC’s history.
On 7 July 2021, the Supreme Court of Mauritius dismissed an injunction request filed by Cloud Innovation, a member accused of contractual violations. The next day AfriNIC issued a communiqué signed by Kayihura. It announced that the board, acting in good faith and on the strength of the court’s decision, had terminated Cloud Innovation’s membership and frozen its number resources. A 90 day grace period was offered, recognizing the pandemic context and the need to shield end users from disruption. This was governance in action, firm and rules based, but tempered by responsibility.
Cloud Innovation, however, was not just any member. It held colossal IPv4 blocks from AfriNIC, allocated between 2013 and 2016–154.80.0.0/12, 45.192.0.0/12, 156.224.0.0/11, 154.192.0.0/11 — amounting to more than 30 million addresses, worth hundreds of millions of dollars on the secondary market. It was also a RIPE NCC member in Europe, holding 45.133.76.0/22 and an immense IPv6 block (2a14:9a00::/29). Yet, tellingly, it had no Autonomous System Number, proof that it was not operating its own networks but acting as a broker and speculator.
AfriNIC’s decision, based on law and process, should have been a milestone in defending African resources. Instead, it triggered the opening salvo of a judicial war. Cloud Innovation’s founder, Lu Heng, launched an all out counter attack. Within days, his lawyers were back in the Supreme Court, claiming 1.8 billion dollars in reputational damages. In an unprecedented move, the court ordered a freeze of 50 million dollars on AfriNIC’s bank accounts. Overnight, the registry was stripped of its financial lifeline. Salaries could not be paid, contractors were halted, investments stalled. A technical institution was placed under siege through legal procedure.
From that point forward, AfriNIC was trapped in a strategy of judicial asphyxiation. Cloud Innovation filed a cascade of lawsuits and injunctions. Every board meeting, every election, every policy initiative was blocked or delayed in court. This was not litigation aimed at resolution but a deliberate scorched earth tactic, designed to exhaust the registry and paralyse it from within.
For Eddy Kayihura, the man tasked with rebuilding AfriNIC, this was baptism by fire. He was named personally in filings, targeted with reputational attacks, and forced into a daily struggle to keep the institution breathing. The context of COVID 19 only worsened matters. Lockdowns slowed court procedures, travel was restricted, and even simple steps like providing a power of attorney became logistical nightmares. Cloud Innovation exploited these delays skillfully, using them to argue for extensions or to invalidate proceedings.
Kayihura found himself in the eye of the storm. His 8 July communiqué, meant to demonstrate good faith, was turned into evidence of alleged overreach. His efforts to engage the community were undermined by the constant barrage of lawsuits. What should have been a mandate of reform became a mandate of resistance. For the rest of his tenure, he fought a war of attrition against an adversary that wielded procedure as a weapon.
The result was the slow suffocation of AfriNIC. Technical staff soldiered on, but morale dropped. The board fractured, elections collapsed, and the wider community retreated into silence. International allies expressed concern but avoided direct involvement. Africa’s registry, the keystone of its Internet sovereignty, was isolated.
Kayihura’s leadership became defined not by expansion or modernization, but by survival. He held the line as Cloud Innovation applied its scorched earth tactics, but the cost was immense. AfriNIC remained standing, but only barely, its resources frozen, its legitimacy contested, its future uncertain.
What began as an attempt to enforce policy and reclaim addresses had turned into a full blown siege. This was the beginning of AfriNIC’s judicial asphyxiation, a strategy executed with precision by Lu Heng, whose scorched earth approach left the African Internet community hostage to courtrooms in Mauritius.The Legal Siege and the Culture of Fear
What could have been a contained internal crisis quickly escalated into a full-blown legal siege. Cloud Innovation, registered in the Seychelles, surprised the entire Internet governance community by launching an aggressive judicial campaign against AfriNIC in the courts of Mauritius.
More than fifty legal cases were filed in rapid succession. Some were emergency applications. Others aimed to freeze bank accounts, block board meetings, suspend elections, or issue restraining orders against AfriNIC’s leadership. The goal was not just to defend a legal position. It was to paralyze the registry entirely.
And it worked. As AfriNIC tried to clean up its records and assert control, it faced a coordinated legal pushback. Every step taken by the registry was met with a countermeasure in court. Every attempt at reform was slowed by injunctions. The legal process became a tool of exhaustion.
Mauritius, a country that had welcomed AfriNIC with open arms, found its judiciary transformed into a battlefield. The smallest procedural weakness within AfriNIC was turned into ammunition. Lawyers exploited every inconsistency. The registry, unprotected by any political authority or international framework, stood exposed and alone.
But the battle did not remain inside courtrooms. Cloud Innovation also launched a campaign in the public arena. Journalists who covered the story were contacted by lawyers. Technical experts who spoke publicly received legal threats. Letters of warning were sent. Some were asked to retract comments or face lawsuits. Accusations of defamation multiplied.
One by one, voices fell silent. In technical forums across Africa, anxiety spread. Contributors who had helped build AfriNIC preferred to stay quiet. The atmosphere shifted. Discussions became more careful, more restrained. People hesitated to speak. A wave of self-censorship settled in.
Only the boldest continued to raise concerns. The rest watched from a distance. Waiting. Hoping. Sighing. The case of Cloud Innovation is more than a legal dispute. It is a masterclass in how to capture a technical institution using entirely legal means. It demonstrates the vulnerability of community-based governance when left unsupported. It reveals how easy it is to exploit a vacuum of continental coordination.
Because Cloud Innovation is not just a company in a contract dispute. It is a sophisticated structure with global operations and unclear internal dynamics. On paper, it followed procedures. In practice, it overwhelmed them. Upstream, it looked like a normal member with proper documents. Downstream, it operated as a disruptive force, manipulating procedures, blocking governance, and dragging the registry into a spiral of inaction. It became something difficult to categorize. Not a rogue actor. Not a state. Not a traditional business. But something else. A legal and financial fog. A presence that could not be pinned down, yet one that reshaped the entire environment.
What made it worse was the silence.nNo continental body stepped in. No African Union statement. No coordinated pressure from regional institutions. No visible support from development agencies. The field was left open. And Cloud Innovation kept advancing. Meanwhile, AfriNIC meant to be the guardian of a shared public resource, was slipping into coma. No budget. No elections. No functioning board. Just a skeleton staff, legal briefs piling up, and an entire region left in limbo.
A Crisis of Sovereignty and Vision
By now, it is clear. This story is not only about IP addresses. It is about sovereignty. It is about vision. And it is about the structural weaknesses of African digital governance. In late 2019, AfriNIC attempted to react. A disciplinary procedure was launched. Ernest Byaruhanga was dismissed for serious misconduct. A police complaint was filed. The matter was referred to the prosecutor’s office.
But nothing could be recovered. The WHOIS system had no mechanism to revoke addresses. Once the transfers were complete, the blocks vanished into the global secondary market. They became almost impossible to trace or reclaim. What was needed was a continental emergency mechanism. A coordinated legal response. Regional treaties. Diplomatic pressure. But none of that existed. Instead, AfriNIC was left to face the consequences alone.
More than an individual failure, the scandal exposed a collective vulnerability. In any other region, this would have triggered a parliamentary inquiry, an intergovernmental alert, or at the very least a public investigation. In Africa, it triggered silence. Despite the gravity of the events, AfriNIC continued to operate. Barely. The episode revealed that even a well-intentioned, community-led institution could be dangerously exposed if it had no political backing and no protective architecture.
The current crisis between AfriNIC and Cloud Innovation is rooted in that history. When foreign actors discover structural gaps, they move in. They know that there will be no rapid continental response. No diplomatic firewall. No shared defense. They know that silence means permission. This is not a technical issue. It is a political one. The governance model failed because it lacked support. AfriNIC was not abandoned because it was weak. It was weak because it was abandoned.
Africa handed its digital keys to a registry it never truly backed. Not politically. Not legally. Not diplomatically. If there is to be a future, it must begin by learning from this past. Because digital sovereignty cannot rest on fragile foundations. It must be built with structure, with unity, and with courage. Cloud Innovation’s legal maneuvering has led AfriNIC into a slow suffocation. And the continent has watched, mostly in silence.
Institutional Paralysis and the Weight of Silence
As the legal machinery set in motion by Cloud Innovation expanded, AfriNIC began to choke. The registry, once envisioned as the technical compass of Africa’s Internet, now found itself adrift. Leadership was unclear. Governance had stalled. Even day-to-day operations became a struggle.
Holding a board meeting became an obstacle course. Elections were frozen. Staff were demoralized. Legal fees drained resources. Decisions were postponed or blocked entirely. AfriNIC was no longer steering Africa’s digital future. It was barely surviving.
One by one, the safeguards fell apart. Court rulings in Mauritius froze the registry’s bank accounts. Shareholder meetings were suspended. Injunctions limited the actions of its directors. The board became fragmented, with some members resigning and others constrained by legal threats. The very structure that had kept AfriNIC functional collapsed under the weight of litigation.
Each time the registry tried to move forward, a new lawsuit appeared. Each time a reform was proposed, another injunction followed. The institution, already fragile, became legally immobilized.
Outside the courtroom, a darker shift was taking place. A climate of fear had settled over the African Internet community. Developers, activists, and engineers who had once been vocal became cautious. Many stopped speaking altogether. Legal threats had made discussion dangerous. In public forums and technical mailing lists, the energy disappeared. People watched, but few dared to act. And the silence was not limited to individuals.
International partners grew distant. Governments remained quiet. Institutions that should have spoken out stayed on the sidelines. Even longtime allies of AfriNIC hesitated to intervene. Without support, AfriNIC began to collapse from the inside. Internal divisions emerged. Different factions formed. Petitions were filed. Accusations circulated. Decisions were delayed or rushed without consensus. Mistrust spread across the ecosystem.
At the same time, African Internet service providers who relied on AfriNIC to allocate IP resources found themselves blocked. Delays became the norm. Network expansion plans were suspended. Public tenders were put on hold because necessary resources were unavailable. But even more troubling than the operational delays was the loss of confidence. The AfriNIC crisis revealed something deeper. Africa lacked an emergency protocol to protect its digital institutions. No legal shield. No continental backup plan. No binding solidarity between member states.
When AfriNIC began to fall, it fell alone. The African Union stayed silent. Member states had other priorities. Regional agencies remained invisible. Civil society, despite being alert, had no levers of influence. The system failed to respond. And the registry became a symbol of something far greater, the fragility of Africa’s ability to defend its own critical infrastructure.
Because IP addresses are not just numbers. They are the architecture of presence in cyberspace. Without them, there is no visibility. No service. No digital nationhood. In other regions of the world, a crisis of this scale would have triggered emergency meetings. Coordination between ministries. Technical audits. Mediation teams. Rapid funding. Political pressure. In Africa, the response was inertia. As if AfriNIC were an isolated entity. As if the registry’s fate belonged to no one. As if it did not matter.
And yet, the warnings had been sounded for months. Letters were sent. Articles were published. Panels were organized. But little changed. The public did not grasp the depth of the disaster. Most media outlets saw the issue as too complex or too obscure. The story became a fog. A nebula, hard to see and harder to explain. Still, this story must be told. Not as a technical anecdote. But as a political lesson.
The Smart Africa Pivot and the Search for Redemption
At some point, someone had to act. While the legal crisis dragged on and the technical community held its breath, one institution slowly stepped forward. Quietly at first, then with more confidence. That institution was Smart Africa. And at its helm stood Lacina Koné.
Calm. Strategic. Unshaken. Koné became the voice of a different kind of African diplomacy. Not the kind that chases photo opportunities. The kind that moves with intention. With precision. With a long view. He understood that AfriNIC’s collapse was more than a technical failure. It was a strategic loss for a continent still fighting to define its place in global digital governance. And he made it clear, at every meeting and in every room, that this was not just about IP addresses. It was about power, credibility, and control.
At ICANN 81 in Istanbul, he began rallying African delegations behind a coordinated message. It was no longer enough to hope the system would self-correct. States had to show up. Speak clearly. Defend the last piece of Internet infrastructure still rooted on the continent.
In March 2025, at a ministerial roundtable in Seattle, the shift became visible. For the first time in years, African ministers sat side by side with technical experts and AfriNIC representatives. Ghana. Benin. Others. All in one room. The tone had changed. Patience had worn thin. The message was now direct: the continent must reclaim what it built.
That momentum carried into ICANN 83. Working with regulators, experts, and state representatives, Smart Africa brought forward a series of recommendations. These included reinforcing transparency, establishing a legal framework at the continental level, and preparing member states for the coming elections. Behind the scenes, capitals like Kigali began building pressure. They called for credible timelines. They insisted on a path out of institutional deadlock. They demanded safeguards against further legal sabotage. The goal was no longer to fix a crisis. It was to create a roadmap for reconstruction.
What made this moment different was the method. Lacina Koné did not raise his voice. He built coalitions. He listened, but he did not wait. Meeting after meeting. Workshop after workshop. He delivered the same message with growing clarity. The digital sovereignty of Africa will not be outsourced. Not again. Not now. And that strategy began to take form.
In early 2025, a list of candidates was assembled for the AfriNIC board. Not a random collection. A team. Selected for their technical depth, ethical credibility, and continental balance. They represented East and West, Anglophone and Francophone, private sector and civil society. There was a purpose behind this coalition. To move past the era of infighting and improvised governance. To give the community a new chance. A clean slate. A united face. It was not a rescue. It was a recovery plan.
From Electoral Breakdown to Diplomatic Shock
By early 2025, after more than a year of institutional paralysis, AfriNIC prepared to hold elections. It was meant to be a turning point. A return to legitimacy. A new start.
The process was placed under the supervision of the Receiver, a court-appointed officer named Me Gowtamsingh Dabee. His mandate was clear: organize transparent elections in line with AfriNIC’s bylaws and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Mauritius from September 2023.
A detailed calendar was issued. Nominations opened. An electoral committee was appointed. An electronic voting platform was announced. The final vote was scheduled for late June.
But trouble began immediately. On June 6, ICANN issued a formal letter of concern. It warned of irregularities. One voting member, recently registered, appeared to be involved in the oversight of the same election. The conflict of interest was clear. ICANN demanded clarity on the voter list, restructuring of the election committee, and full documentation of all corrective steps.
This was not the first warning. Back in March, ICANN had reminded the Receiver that AfriNIC’s legitimacy relied on upholding its core mandate — managing Internet number resources impartially and according to community-developed policy. It emphasized that AfriNIC was not the owner of those resources. It was their steward.
Those warnings were not heeded. On June 13, a case filed by the Tanzania Internet Service Providers Association triggered an emergency ruling by the Supreme Court of Mauritius. The judge ordered an immediate suspension of both the electronic vote and the final in-person election scheduled for June 23. Parties were instructed to explain themselves before the end of the month.
Despite the court order, chaos followed. On June 23, an in-person vote took place in Port Louis. Dozens of voting proxies were submitted without proper verification. Several members later discovered that votes had been cast in their name without consent. Others reported being approached with offers to transfer voting rights. A now-infamous video showed participants handling stacks of proxy forms with no apparent limit. Even more troubling was a piece of campaign material circulated under the name of the Numbers Resource Society. It bore AfriNIC’s official logo, raising questions about unauthorized access to internal databases.
That day, the rules were not just bent. They were broken. On June 25, ICANN responded with rare bluntness. In an open letter copied to the highest authorities in Mauritius, it expressed serious concern over what it called shocking allegations. It reminded the Receiver of the requirements of ICP-2, the global framework that governs the recognition of Regional Internet Registries. And it made one thing clear. If trust in the election was not restored, AfriNIC’s recognition could be reviewed.
ICANN listed fifteen detailed questions. They covered everything from proxy validation and data access to transparency in vote counting. The Receiver was given twenty-four hours to respond. ICANN warned that it could block the publication of results and would not hesitate to make its entire correspondence public.
But the final blow came from within. The government of Mauritius, until then mostly silent, issued an official statement. It denounced organized electoral fraud, citing forged proxies and the involvement of foreign nationals from Rwanda and Kenya. Some had reportedly left the country the night of the vote. Complaints were filed by civil servants and by telecom companies like Emtel. The Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies ordered additional border surveillance. It also began consultations with the Attorney General about legal action to stop any attempt at publishing the disputed results.
As this was happening, the Receiver reportedly began counting votes in private, with no external supervision and no communication to the community. The government, for the first time, broke ranks. It publicly questioned the integrity of the process and the role of the Receiver himself. What had started as a recovery mission had now collapsed into full diplomatic crisis.
Taking Back Control. Once and for All
I am not writing these words from a place of abstraction. I am writing them from the margins and the crossroads of this continent. From community forums to international summits, I have spent the last 15 years listening, learning, contributing, and sometimes warning. I believe in a future where Africa governs its own Internet. Where infrastructure is not outsourced. Where policy is not imported. Where digital sovereignty is more than a wakanda slogan.
But that future will not come through hope alone. The AfriNIC saga is no longer a technical dispute. It has moved to three battlefields at once. Inside courtrooms in Port Louis. Inside ICANN’s offices and policy boards. And inside diplomatic backchannels, where Kigali and others are quietly redrawing the lines.
From the corridors of the Internet Governance Forum in Oslo to the red phones in African ministries, all eyes now turn to Lacina Koné and the team at Smart Africa. For many, they represent the last credible hope to rebuild what has been lost.
But let us be clear. The AfriNIC of yesterday will not return. This crisis is not about temporary dysfunction. It has exposed the deep erosion of institutional models that were never protected, never reinforced, and never truly backed by the states that created them. ICANN has announced a compliance audit. It will determine whether AfriNIC still qualifies as a Regional Internet Registry. The outcome remains uncertain. But one way or another, a threshold has been crossed. There is no going back.
Togo’s Minister for Digital Economy, Cina Lawson, said it best:
“Even if Africa has to build a new registry, we must learn every lesson from this crisis. We need strong institutions, with clear rules, real accountability, and a governance model that belongs to the continent.”
Because it is not enough to break from the old path. We must do so with method. And with courage. As long as African institutions rely on external recognition, and lack clear political and legal backing, they will remain vulnerable. We cannot expect resilience from structures we leave unsupported.
If a new registry must emerge, it must follow ICP-2 principles. It must be community-based, non-profit, accountable, and transparent. But most of all, it must be treated as a critical resource, not symbolically, but politically Africa’s digital future will not be secured by declarations. It will be secured by structure, by vigilance, and by political will.
A new generation is watching. Their dreams are not built around slogans. They speak the language of code, of networks, of infrastructure. They want more than connectivity. They want control. They do not pray for miracles. They trust protocols. And in this new digital gospel, many now call for salvation in the name of the Father, the Son… and the IP address.
AfriNIC may disappear.
Its name may dissolve into the shifting sands of history.
But the dream of the founders must not be buried.
Not now. Not ever.