PIN collates sign-up for Nigeria cyber crime law

Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN) has unveiled yet another campaign to collate signatures to urge the National Assembly to give Nigerians a cyber crime law with a targeted10,000 signatures.

Mrs. Johnson, CommTech Minister

Disclosing this, the Executive Director, PIN, Mr. Gbenga Sesan said that Nigeria has not always been in the news for the reasons her stakeholders desire, but recent events have even made the bash-Nigeria-at-the-earliest-opportunity situation worse.

He noted that unfortunately, the Internet Crime Complaint Centre’s popular 2010 Internet Crime Report had Nigeria retaining its third position after only the United States and United Kingdom again.

Worried by this development, he said, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN), has answered tons of questions about why Nigerians should bother about the nation’s position on the list since “the nations that should know better are even ahead of us in this crime.”

He listed some of data to support PIN’s fears including that Nigeria has 44 million internet users compared to the UK’s 51.4 million and the US’ 245 million.

“If we look at the global picture, 2.1 per cent of global internet users reside in Nigeria, compared to 2.5 per cent in the UK and 11.69 per cent in the US,” he lamented.

He foresees that given plug and play bandwidth, Nigeria would exceed the leaders in this crime business, this is in spite of power, customer service and socio-economic limitations that Nigerian internet users face.

“It would expect Nigeria to be very far away from that unexalted position on the list,” he bemoaned.

He stressed that gives everyone a reason to worry - and that includes those who are acting to curb the problem and those who have become experts at playing the blame game.

In partnership with Microsoft, Economic & Financial Crimes Commission and the World Bank Civil Society Programme, PIN are implementing a social campaign that seeks to redirect the energy of young Nigerians who are involved in the shameful vice towards virtuous ideals.

“The project website (www.pinigeria.org/isspin) has some updates that you should see, and two other key elements of the campaign are the rehabilitation program and policy advocacy,” he said.

Describing as a shame that Nigeria does not have any legislation that addresses the issue of cybercrime head-on, hence he said, PIN have followed the ongoing discussions since the establishment of the Nigerian Cybercrime Working Group and got a little excited when stakeholders gathered to discuss one of the bills at the National Assembly in 2009 but discussions does not empower any institution to tackle challenges properly.

Sesan explained that the Cyber Security and Data Protection Agency (Establishment, etc) Bill, sponsored by Hon. Etim Bassey, and listed as HB. 154 in the House of Assembly, and the Electronic Fraud Prohibition Bill, 2008 (SB. 185) sponsored by Senator Ayo Arise in the Senate (which missed a 3rd reading opportunity, just after committee report) already provided a foundation for what we will need.

He called on stakeholders - youth, government, private sector, civil society, media, and academia to name a few; to ask for accelerated passage of an acceptable firm but fair piece of legislation.

As part of the MISSPIN campaign, he pointed out that PIN and its partners are asking Nigerians regardless of location to call on the leadership of the National Assembly to accelerate the passage of a much-needed bill.

He said that it is expected that the campaign would get at least 10,000 signatures that will then be delivered to the relevant institutions in November 2011 and urging Nigerians to spread the word and let’s get Nigeria out of this cybercrime mess.

“Let’s make the demand very clear: Dear honourable and distinguished members of the National Assembly, please give Nigeria cybercrime legislation now,” he declared.

Remmy Nweke

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