As Nigeria’s Internet penetration continues to rise, worries among regulators and analysts are that cyber crimes could also begin to increase as a result.
According to local reporting, there is a significant worry that the threat to critical sectors of the economy and government are being targeted by cyber criminals and the expectation is that they will increase in the years to come.
Although the country’s Internet penetration is relatively low, at around 30 percent, Nigeria has remained in the top 10 globally of cyber crime.
“The United States and the United Kingdom lead the global cyber crime index, but that’s understandable considering their high Internet penetration at 77.3 percent and 82.5 percent respectively,” one analyst was quoted by Business Day as saying. “In our case, we have a low penetration rate and still we are most known for cyber crime.”
Farida Waziri, the Chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said in a recent interview that these challenges will be met with action to maintain and bolster existing anti-crime units.
“What we are seeing is that Nigeria is ripe for cyber crime because we have not cracked down well enough on these fronts. What needs to happen now is to see what has been successful and get rid of tactics that have largely been fraught with corruption and antagonism,” Waziri said.
Waziri and other analysts believe that by increasing overall penetration and education on the Internet could help create a society that does not need to resort to cyber crimes to be heard. The analysts argued that many people use this method of crime because they have nothing else to do.
“It is a two-fold problem that we should try to help solve at once through employment in all sectors and buttressing existing Internet infrastructure,” said one analyst.
By David Eto
