The Federal Government has expressed deep concern over the recent indictment of 77 Nigerian citizens by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States, saying efforts would be intensified at addressing the rising scourge of cyber-related crimes.
As part of measures towards tackling the crime, government has urged relevant agencies to forge better collaboration moving forward.
Chief Information Technology Officer, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, gave the charge Thursday, in Abuja.
According to NITDA, it was wrong for any nation to vilify Nigeria based on the alleged offences of a few citizens, who remain innocent until otherwise proven.
While warning against “knee-jerk” approach to issues, the agency warned against visiting the “sins” of the alleged offenders on many other Nigerians in the diaspora, who earn their living through legitimate means.
“The attention of the National Information Technology Agency (NITDA) has been drawn to reports in international media indicting scores of Nigerians for Cybercrimes in the United States. We also note a recent publication of a foreign-owned software company hitherto operating in Nigeria indicting its Nigerian employees for lack of integrity and duplicity.
“For the avoidance of doubt, NITDA is resolute that the action of a few individuals does not represent thousands of hardworking professional Nigerians with exemplary careers in Information Technology. Nigerian technology entrepreneurs, start-ups, scale-ups, and midsized companies have continued to blaze the trail in innovation and service provisioning in Africa and the world. We also celebrate thousands of Nigerian professionals who currently work and contribute to the development of innovation and Information Technology in leading multinationals operating globally.
“NITDA is concerned that knee jerk reactions following these allegations may lead to poor treatment of Nigerians living outside Nigeria or denial of certain financial services that may hamper economic growth or frustrate investments into Nigerian companies especially start-ups who need investments to sustain innovation”, the statement read in part.
Inuwa said the Agency, in exercise of its mandate, will in the coming weeks summon a critical stakeholders’ session to assess collective performance in preventing cybercrimes with a view to proposing ideas and policies to combat this scorching menace of cybercrimes.
Stella Enenche, Abuja
