Hi Nishal

Historically, AFRINIC governance has never been about really resource members deciding for themselves across the continent.

The politics of AFRINIC governance are literally centered around South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. While AFRINIC is a supposed regional internet registry in terms of broad outlook, her governance, the so-called bottom-up multi-stakeholder self governance is sort of an illusion. 

For many years, actors within South Africa, Kenya and often Nigeria/Ghana decided who became a director of AFRINIC. The rest of the countries across the continent just followed through. Those decisions about which candidate served on the AFRINIC board in the past 10+ years were determined by very few individuals through private and public mailing list endorsements of select candidates. A lot of subjectivity was employed.  I can remember how many times my twin brother Alston literally sent emails on a private mailing list such as NAP Africa list or zanog, telling folks who he believed were the best candidates (how did things turn out). I remember vividly during physical meetings how different folks were involved in scheming and plotting who shall be voted in and who shall be dropped depending on which camp folks belonged in and which individual carried the most proxy votes. 

In fact I have been part of this very problem as well personally and most people who know me, are very much aware that I often reached out to vouch for some candidates against others. It was until I volunteered on the NOMCOM in 2022 that I saw through the messy politics of AFRINIC governance because I had to remain neutral with my colleagues on that 2022 NOMCOM but that is a story for another day in this case study called AFRINIC.

I mean look at how AFRINIC's own staff express open bias in terms of resource members engagement. They concentrate their engagements within South Africa, Kenya and perhaps Nigeria. They basically focus engagement in the darker parts of the below map.  The staff are quick to jump on NOG based social media groups to provide quick updates to resource members. The same updates are often not extended to the rest of resource members across the continent via mailing lists who are not on social media. This makes sense since majority of the funding that bank rolls AFRINIC is sourced from those countries with the most members. They therefore get the best treatment and unbiased attention. This behaviour is universal. 


the real afrinic.jpeg


You are calling out Mark Elkins for tribal thinking, but you forget Mark Elkins has been in the DNS and DNS-Sec space for years and that tribe will support Elkins out of potential bias while he seeks support from the ZANOG tribe openly unlike the endorsed candidates who ZANOG resource members are being told to vote for in what is supposed to be a free and fair elections. 

It does not matter if it's ZANOG, Smart Africa, NRS, AfStar pulling the top-down strings, etc.... Tribalism and sectarianism reigns high and it's the very reason why the AFRINIC Ideal has suffered controversy after controversy because the bottom-up self governance is masquerading while various interest groups advance self interest. 

These are my observations on the broken configuration that is AFRINIC.  

Cheers,
Noah Maina



On Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 11:43 AM Nishal Goburdhan via zanog-discuss <zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za> wrote:
On 10 Sep 2025, at 10:13, Mark Elkins via zanog-discuss wrote:


> There will always appear to be problems as long as there are people that disagree with our personal viewpoint....

i think that the OP conflates “problems” with “disagreement.
disagreement is healthy;  everyone here should know why.


> On that subject - why is ZANOG suggesting non-South Africans for seat 9 whilst I am standing for that seat. Don't we want a little more influence on the AFRINIC Board. Please vote for me for seat 8.

i don’t speak for ZANOG, but, i think that your expectation that ZANOG should support a south african just because “south african” is flawed.  i’m a fiercely proud ZAn;  and that’s exactly why i must call out this kind of “tribalist thinking”.  we don’t need more of that.  and quite frankly mark, you should already be aware of the damage that this sort of divisive messaging has caused in the afrinic community in the past.

we should be working to build bridges, not reinforce divisions.

(ZANOG (the org) SHOULD vote for whomever it feels is the best candidate, and perhaps the people behind casting that vote, may explain their rationale in a follow-up message)


> I am an ex-AFRINIC Board Member (the board needs some history), the re-creator of CO.ZA, DNS Trainer, part of the DNS Study of Africa, Part of the ICANN DNSSEC & Security management, local ISOC Board - etc. I run an ISP, am a Registrar and Registry operator of EDU.ZA

imho, the board also needs:
- new blood and new perspective;
- bridge builders, not kings;  because collaboration matters more than hierarchy
- humility;  since leadership is about service, and not position
[..]


-n.
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