I've sent it to all the RIR lists as it affects global policy decisions: that a single RIR is acting in their own good without even having asked their own membership about this situation.
In general, when there are no explicit rules for appealing decisions of some group, the accepted appeal process is to begin by appealing directly to the group which made the disputed decision. The next step is to appeal to whichever body oversees that group. And so on. In this case, has an appeal been made to the AfriNIC hostmasters who made the allocation? Has an appeal already been made to the AfriNIC board of directors? Has an appeal been made to the AfriNIC membership? Has an appeal been made to the NRO directly? If not, then I don't see that this issue is relevant to ARIN or RIPE. Until the groups listed above have been given the opportunity to deal with the issue, ARIN and RIPE have no role in this. In addition, the appeal must be done sequentially, i.e. the person appealing the issue must allow a reasonable time for the issue to be considered before escalating the appeal to the next level. My sense is that none of this was done, and the appeal is being broadcast everywhere at once in an attempt to sling mud. This is not acceptable. And yes, Africa is a special case. It is a very large area in which the telecommunications structure is very complex, unlike Europe where the complainant lives. Wars and political disputes as well as hostile environments mean that all levels of the network from physical upwards, will have so-called "waste" which does not exist in Europe. That includes IP addressing. In this case AfriNIC is not conveniently located in one large well-connected city as in Europe or North America. Instead it is in 3 widely separated locations where you simply cannot connect by running three private lines. --Michael Dillon