Nigeria not in a position to fight cybercrime, says NCC

Sylvanus Ehikioya, the Director, New Media and Information Security at the NCC, said all efforts by the NCC to fight cybercrime are in vain, as there is no specific law that stipulates the prosecution of those involved in cybercrime. Ehikioya said that unless the passage of the Harmonised 2011 Cyber Security Bill to check on cybercrime is hastened, then NCC remains powerless.

“For the Nigerian government, to a very large extent, we are protecting our systems, using the best practice. But until we pass the Cyber Security Bill, there is nothing that the Nigerian government can really do,” Ehikioya, said to Premium Times.

NCC has installed all the necessary requirements, in terms of legal and technical infrastructure. “But for the legal infrastructure, the government is still wobbling because since 2011, the Harmonised Cyber Security Bill has not been passed,” he said.

The NCC’s admission comes a few months after the Cyber Security Africa conference held in Kenya late last year revealed cybercrime is growing more quickly in Africa than in any part of the world.

It is reported that countries like Kenya and South Africa lost close to 0.05 per cent and 0.01 per
cent of their GDP to cybercrime in 2011 alone.