AFRINIC “In a Bad Situation”, Has Not Been Able to Constitute Board; Has No CEO

Better link: https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/22/afrinic_failure_warni...

(The current URL is basically blogspam for this URL, which is much more informative. dang: I recommend changing the link to this one.)

I was curious what actually happened to cause this situation since this article and the ones that it linked to are quite light on details. This article from 2021 paints a better background: https://www.internetgovernance.org/2021/08/19/a-fight-over-c...

The article that is linked to in the original article also points to some really shady behavior by the parties involved: https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/22/afrinic_failure_warni...

Part of the reason the governance is failing is due to NRS [1]. The NRS is running a concerted disinformation campaign [2] and a sue everyone and everything campaign to cripple AfriNIC [3]. The root cause is someone got some up blocks from out of the AfriNic region awhile back and started using for nefarious internet activities. They got discovered and the ip blocks reclaimed[4]. A change of the bylaws was instigated to create a new rule to allow the export of ip blocks from the region, that failed. Finally the court cases started rolling in to try and use the courts to allow the export of the ip blocks and or cripple and scare employees of AfriNic. So far, the offense team is winning, no ceo has been selected due to the chaos, the board is no longer there and some elements of the community have been paid off to ensure no consensus inthe annual meetings. Also, there’s the natural split of the Africa community along francophone and anglophone lines which is making things difficult. It’s a terrible time for AfriNic….

1. https://www.nrs.help/

2. https://m.youtube.com/@numberresourcesociety/videos?view=0&s...

3. https://afrinic.net/court-cases

4. https://afrinic.net/ast/afrinic-press-release-litigation-202...

This has me curious: what happens if for some reason the entire board and all officers at a company collectively resign?

Is it possible to get “locked out” of a company’s governance mechanisms?

Looks like Emtel does some of the work and maybe calls more of the shots now.

The pandemic plus going all virtual may have contributed to a loss of interest in internet governance most people take for-granted and/or don't understand.