Topic: Cybercrime and the Nigerian Economy 

Cybercrime is by no means peculiar to Nigeria. It has nonetheless become a persistent source of national chagrin within the comity of nations. Global popular culture continues to associate Nigeria with two things – oil, and princes who promise riches via email. And this notwithstanding, there are those who have, in the country’s defense, posited that fraud has no nationality.

However, as Nigerians we should be concerned about the Image of our country and beyond that we must understand that the trust deficit created by the perpetrators of Cybercrime is stifling flow of investment to Nigeria from other countries. In a research conducted by Paradigm Initiative Nigeria in 2013. It was discovered that Cybercrime cost Nigeria up to $13Billion. If the trend is not reversed, Nigeria may find itself in a very difficult situation in a short while. Nigeria will not benefit fully from the prospect of e-commerce and the digital economy generally if the country’s name is prominently identified with Cybercrime. Please join us at 2pm (GMT+1) as we discuss ‘Cybercrime and the Nigerian Economy’ with our guest Femi Abikoye on #PINternetFreedom chat  

Abikoye Oluwafemi is a trained lawyer and has worked as ICT Policy Officer for Paradigm Initiative Nigeria between 2013 and 2014 before proceeding to the United Kingdom for his LLM in Computer and Communications at the prestigious Queen Mary University of London. He has very keen interest and experience in ICT Policy and Law and has been involved in writing Policy Brief for Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN) in the past. He worked with the PIN team to write a Policy brief that looks at Cybersecurity in Nigeria in July 2014. This is in addition to his involvement in the past in PIN’s other projects such as Internet Policy training and Internet Freedom forum. Femi currently lives in the UK where he is studying for his LLM.