Nigeria loses N159bn to cybercrime

By Emmanuel Elebeke

Stakeholders in the nation’s ICT sector last week gathered in Abuja to discuss recent developments and challenges bedeviling the country’s cyberspace.The three day workshop organized by Common Wealth Telecommunications Organization(CTO) in collaboration with Ministry of Communications drew participants from within and outside the country, who made valid assessment of danger and damages so far caused by the cybercrime menace.

According to the Minister of Communications, Barr. Adebayo Shittu, Nigeria lost about N159 billion in cybercrime in 13 years, a development he described as unacceptable.

He asserted that the Ministry would leverage the active support of the CTO to building all requisite ICT cyberspace capacities in Nigeria.

The Minister, who described ICT as the bedrock of Nigeria’s Change agenda, said that the new post-modern realities of ICT and cyberspace have extended the frontiers of living space from physical space into cyberspace.

According to him, the workshop was designed to explore ideas and to draw experience from global community, who have experienced it and utilized modern solutions and to identify various modes of committing crime in cyber space and evolve answers to them.

Campaigns against cyber crime

Also speaking at the occasion, the Secretary General of Common Wealth Telecommunication Organization (CTO), Engr. Shola Taylor said Nigeria remains a major force to be reckoned with in terms of cybersecurity plans with unique opportunities to drive the campaign against cybercrime.

He promised to collaborate with Nigerian government and all relevant agencies to tackle the menace of cybercrime in the country.

In his remarks, the British High Commissioner, Paul