The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says Nigeria
currently ranks third globally in cyber crimes behind the UK and the U.S.
NCC’s Chief Executive Officer, Prof. Umar Danbatta,
disclosed this on Tuesday at the ongoing 2017 Annual General Conference of the
Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the
conference’ theme is: “African Business: Penetrating through Institution
Building”.
Danbatta, at a breakout session with the sub-theme: “The
Business of Cyber Law, Internet Policy and Privacy Rights”, moderated by Mr
Augustine Alegeh (SAN) a former NBA President, said the number of internet
users in Nigeria has hit 91.6 million.
“About N127 billion was the estimated loss to cybercrime
in Nigeria in 2015; Nigeria ranks third in global internet crimes behind the UK
and U.S.
“A critical factor militating against Africa’s economic
resurgence is the weakness of its institutions.
“Nigeria ranks 169 out of 199 on the World Bank’s ease of
doing business rankings; we are in a middle of a revolution and the rise of
what we call the networked society.
“The NCC stipulates the laws of engagement that will make
the cyberspace safe and ensure the confidence as well as the safety of the
cyberspace,” Danbatta, a panelist, said.
“There are benefits and risks of the use of cyberspace and
both has to be properly managed.”
NAN reports that other panelists at the breakout session
were Mr Bayo Adekanmi, the Chief Transformation Officer of MTN and Ms Ibikun
Abidoye, the legal counsel of Chocolate City Group.
Others are Ms Sascha Grimme, the Associate Solicitor of
Cooley LLP, a UK-based Lawfirm; and Mr Bisi Adebutu of Premier Lotto, also
known as ‘Baba Ijebu.’
In his remarks, Adebutu gave insight into the challenges
Premier Lotto faced in conducting transactions on the cyberspace.
“Premier Lotto has moved from the streets to the
internet, we have faced certain challenges including paying those who do
business with us.
“The cyber laws are not favourable to our business,
Premier Lotto ranks as the fourth most visited site in the country.
“We have no easy way of verifying or identifying the
owner of cards used to transact business.
“In Nigeria, the business of giving is just emerging, and
it is important that we respect the privacy of our clients when they interact
with us through the use of usernames and passwords.
“Gaming is very popular on the internet and fraud is one
to the challenges we have; if we apprehend an individual trying to perpetuate
fraud, we block their access to us.
“We also have challenges of having to discipline
offenders and the cyber laws have to be properly identified and implemented to
appropriately punish offenders,” Adebutu said.
In her contributions, Grimme said:“Threats and
perpetrators of cyber crimes and the motives behind the cyber attacks have to
be properly identified.
“There are challenges in identifying perpetrators of
cyber crimes; even when identified, there have been instances where they stay
in different jurisdictions making prosecution difficult.”
Adekanmi, while speaking, noted that there is an ongoing
online revolution happening in modern times, and that online security was very
important.
“There is going to be what I call a technology
apocalypse, you will wake up one day and someone is living your life somewhere.
“Someone once said that identity theft is worse than
kidnapping, there is a thin line between privacy and security in modern
business,” the MTN executive said.
On his part, Abiloye, who discussed copyright challenges
in the nation’s music industry, said the general perception of copyright is
that its incentive is to encourage people to create.
“There is a public slant to copyright; there are a lot of
cases about unfair use of copyright.”
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