Osinbajo confirms high rate of cybercrime in Nigeria

The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, has urged stakeholders in Nigeria’s cyberspace to help curtail cybercrime in the country by sharing cybersecurity best practices and ensuring speedy implementation of requisite policies.

Osinbajo said this through the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, in Abuja. He spoke in his address declaring open the Cyber Secure Nigeria 2019 conference. The theme of the conference was “Implementing Cyber Security and Data privacy practices in Nigeria.”

Mr Osinbajo said nobody, organisation or entity is immune to cybercrime victimisation as a result of the sophistication and severity of cybercrime, particularly in 2018. He said this was the reason for all to jointly end the menace to ensure a secure Nigeria.

Otherwise, he said, every internet user would be a victim.

He further stated that cybersecurity has become so essential, as individual and national development increasingly rely on Information Communication Technology (ICT).

He said this calls for stringent regulations to be enacted and implemented to ensure criminal elements do not take advantage of hapless internet users.

“The collection and processing of personal data raise significant privacy and data protection concerns for every citizen; the legal remedy to this problem is data protection to ensure privacy,” he said.

The vice president said the conference was an apt and welcome development in line with the policy thrust of the federal government through the Ministry of Communications and in view of the rampant activities of cybercriminals and internet scammers, popularly known in Nigeria as “yahoo yahoo”.

He urged the conference to generate ideas on combating cyberthreat, curtailing cyber-crime and ensuring data privacy practices in Nigeria, as well as to produce a useful outcome for submission to the federal government.

He promised that the federal government would assess various submissions emanating from the conference and put them to use

Earlier in his address, the President, Cybersecurity Experts Association of Nigeria, Remi Afon, called on the federal government to establish a national cybersecurity centre to coordinate and implement cyber regulations.

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He said the cybersecurity threats landscape has evolved rapidly and has increased in number and sophistication.

He said this needs to be quickly checked for secure cyberspace in Nigeria through the concerted efforts of the critical stakeholders.