• AFRINIC is portrayed as a failed registry crippled by governance collapse, unable to conduct credible elections, prompting its third-largest member to call for its dissolution.
• ICANN’s aggressive intervention—from threats to withdraw recognition to undermining proxy mechanisms—looks less like neutral oversight and more like a quiet power grab.
A registry in meltdown: one disputed vote sinks the election
Since 2022, AFRINIC—the Regional Internet Registry for Africa—has functioned without a board, leaving its governance structure vacant and causing years of judicial interventions. On June 23, 2025, a single disputing proxy vote led to the complete annulment of the election, squashing hundreds of enforceable votes. This was the first court-sanctioned board election since the receivership, which ultimately ended in an enormous loss. This renders democratic process unworkable and raises serious doubts about the registry’s capacity to manage even the most basic governance task.
Also read: EXPOSED: The letter that reveals who was really benefitting from AFRINIC’s lawsuits
Also read: Mauritian judge barred from investigating AFRINIC amid pre-election turmoil
Cloud Innovation: leading the charge for a necessary reset
As AFRINIC’s third-largest member, Cloud Innovation has been actively seeking reform—from initiating receivership in 2023 to legally supporting a court-supervised election and channelling resources to stabilise AFRINIC. Accepting that the election collapse signalled irreparable governance breakdown, the company filed a formal winding-up petition in the Supreme Court of Mauritius, setting AFRINIC a 24 July 2025 deadline to respond. What began as a push for internal reform has now entered the realm of dissolution—Cloud Innovation sees this as a necessary reset, aimed at preserving Africa’s IP resource management and paving the way for a more accountable successor.
ICANN: losing control—or launching a quiet power grab?
ICANN, theoretically a neutral steward of internet identifiers, has stepped firmly into AFRINIC’s internal affairs—threatening to withdraw recognition unless governance is urgently reformed . Its intervention escalated with court filings demanding transparency, emailing members, and raising alarm over proxies. Further, ICANN’s advocacy for a ban on all proxies—and dismissal of powers of attorney—as well as its push for compliance with ICP-2, feel less about electoral fairness and more like manoeuvres to centralise control of AFRINIC’s operations. This quiet power grab raises unsettling questions: is ICANN preserving Internet stability—or undermining Africa’s bottom-up governance in pursuit of global oversight?
What kind of governance is best for Africa’s internet future?
AFRINIC’s dysfunction has already jeopardised Africa’s IP resource management—a core component of digital infrastructure and development across 54 nations. While Cloud Innovation’s push for dissolution might be justified by governance collapse, one must ask: does dissolution lead to stronger oversight—or risk replacing one failed model with another, possibly less regionally accountable structure under ICANN/NRO? ICANN’s threats and interventions may restore technical stability, but at what cost to trust, autonomy, and inclusiveness? As the region awaits a successor, a critical tension remains: whether governance will be restored through genuinely inclusive processes—or imposed through top-down mandates.
