The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) has warned that Universal Acceptance (UA) is critical to ensuring Nigeria’s diverse population can access and use digital services regardless of language, script, or the format of their domain names and email addresses.

The commission gave the warning at the 2026 Universal Acceptance (UA) Adoption Workshop held Thursday in Lagos, hosted by the NCC in collaboration with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Opeolu Oyebanji, Head of the Internet Infrastructure Unit, Cyber Security and Internet Governance Department at the NCC, said Universal Acceptance aligns with the telecoms regulator’s objective of promoting a resilient, secure, inclusive and interoperable Internet ecosystem.

Oyebanji said ensuring digital platforms can accept, validate, process, store and display all valid domain names and email addresses would make online services more accessible to Nigerians.

Supporting Nigeria’s diverse languages

Universal Acceptance is a technical compliance best practice that enables websites, applications, email systems and other Internet-enabled platforms to work with valid domain names and email addresses regardless of their language, script or character length.

According to Oyebanji, the technology is particularly important for Nigeria because of the country’s linguistic diversity.

“For a diverse country such as Nigeria with many languages, Universal Acceptance presents an important opportunity to make the Internet more resilient, accessible to a wider population,” he said.

He added that a UA-ready digital ecosystem could support local content, expand access to digital services, improve user experience and create new opportunities for businesses, developers and innovators.

The NCC’s position comes as the global Domain Name System continues to expand beyond the traditional Latin-character domains that have historically dominated the Internet. ICANN says Internationalised Domain Names allow domain names to be represented in local languages and scripts.

ICANN identifies gaps in Nigerian websites

Yaovi Atohoun, Stakeholder Engagement and Operations Director, Africa, at ICANN, told participants that many people globally remain excluded from the full benefits of the Internet because they cannot use domain names or email addresses in their preferred language and script.

He described Universal Acceptance as “the cornerstone of a more inclusive and multilingual Internet”.

Atohoun disclosed that ICANN surveyed 100 Nigerian websites to assess their UA readiness. About half of the websites had no issues by design, particularly publication-only websites, but platforms requiring user input were more likely to encounter problems.

The assessment tested whether websites could accept email addresses containing characters from different scripts.

“Of the 16 sites that rejected our Bengali address, 14 run WordPress,” Atohoun said.

He added that 27 websites returned ambiguous messages during the assessment, with 12 of those also running WordPress.

ICANN has contributed code to WordPress to address some UA-related challenges. Atohoun said WordPress 6.9, released in 2025, resolved one part of the problem, while another plugin was being tested.

$9.8bn opportunity for businesses

Beyond digital inclusion, Atohoun said Universal Acceptance presents a significant economic opportunity for businesses.

He cited a 2017 study which estimated that Universal Acceptance of Internet domain names represents an opportunity worth more than $9.8 billion, describing the estimate as conservative.

“Many businesses are leaving money on the table by not updating their systems to be UA-ready,” he said.

According to Atohoun, businesses that adopt UA-ready systems would be better positioned to reach growing global audiences and maximise revenue opportunities from current and future Internet users.

Universal Acceptance requires systems to go beyond simply allowing users to enter different characters. Platforms must be able to accept, validate, process, store and correctly display domain names and email addresses.

NCC seeks technical action

The NCC said achieving Universal Acceptance would require more than awareness campaigns. Oyebanji said websites, applications, email systems and other digital platforms must be tested, gaps identified and corrected, while UA readiness should be incorporated into system design, software development, procurement and service delivery.

“Achieving Universal Acceptance requires more than awareness. It also calls for a deliberate technical action,” he said.

He stressed that responsibility for adoption does not rest with one institution, but requires collaboration among government, ICANN, registries, registrars, developers, software vendors, academia, the private sector and the technical community.

The NCC official said the commission’s previous UA initiatives, including awareness workshops held in 2023 and 2024, provided a foundation for the latest engagement.

He said the 2026 workshop was intended to move Nigeria “from awareness and engagement to practical Universal Acceptance adoption”.

Developers urged to embrace UA

Atohoun also urged software developers and system administrators to make Universal Acceptance part of their core technical skills.

He described UA as a new competitive differentiator for developers seeking to remain relevant as the Internet becomes increasingly multilingual.

“Universal Acceptance is essential for developers who want to be at the forefront of their industry and keep pace with the new, global Internet,” he said.

For Nigeria, the push is expected to have implications for government platforms, financial services, e-commerce websites, educational systems and other digital services that require users to create accounts or submit email addresses.

A UA-ready digital ecosystem would allow Nigerians to use online identities that better reflect their languages, cultures and personal preferences, while businesses could potentially reach customers who are currently underserved by existing systems.

The NCC called on stakeholders participating in the workshop to identify technical and institutional barriers to UA adoption and agree on practical actions for improving the readiness of Nigerian digital platforms.