A workshop was held on the 9th day of November, 2023 at Visa Karena Hotel, Port Harcourt, Rivers State and was funded by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Nigeria. CHHELD was represented by the Office Assistant/technical support officer, Praise David.
The formal introduction/opening prayer session was handled by Mr. Chidie who was also the moderator throughout the entire meeting. There was a welcome/opening remark session by Mr. Lennart O. stating the aim of the agenda.
The first session was facilitated by Prof. Freedom C. Onuoha on the topic:
CYBERCRIME, STATE CAPACITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY IN NIGERIA.
The scope of the session are as follows;
1. Introduction
2. Conceptual Clarification
3. Assessing the Scope and Scale of the Threat
4. Factors Contributing to the Growth of Cybercrimes
5. Efforts of the Government to Tackle Cybercrimes
6. Cybercrimes and State Capacity in Nigeria
7. Conclusion and Recommendations
He started by saying that the world is becoming more digitally connected than ever before due to revolution in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Criminals take advantage of this growing transformation to target vulnerabilities in online systems, networks and infrastructure. The prevalence and growing permeation of organized crime, especially cyber-crimes, pose a significant challenge to the security and stability of state across the globe. Cybercrime is a major cause of concern in Nigeria, targeting Nigerian citizens, foreigners, corporate bodies, organizations, and authorities. Much of policy and scholarly attention on the nature, prevalence and impact of cyber-crime have overwhelmingly focused on financial losses, data breaches, and reputational damage. Very little conversation reflects on gradual corrosion and erosion of state capacity in ways that implicates public safety and security.
He went further to list some of the Conceptual Clarifications which are;
1. Cybercrime: Criminal activity that involves the use of a computer and the internet. These can be traditional criminal offenses committed with the use of a computer and newer crimes that originated with the advent of computers and networks
2. State Capacity: “The term ‘‘state capacity’’ has been used across a variety of disciplines to refer to everything from the general capacity of a state to accomplish its goals to the very specific and largely physical capacity of a state to build roads, secure borders, and so on”
3. Public Safety: Public safety or public security involves protecting the people, communities, and the economy against crimes, disasters, and other potential dangers and threats to their wellbeing and prosperi

Some types of Cybercrime:
1. Email and internet fraud
2. Identity fraud (where personal information is stolen and used)
3. Theft of financial or card payment data
4. Theft and sale of corporate data
5. Cyber extortion (demanding money to prevent a threatened attack) etc.
Prof. Freedom C. Onuoha further listed some of the scope and scale of Cybercrime;
1. Cybercrimes is a growing cause of global concern as incidents of financial, intellectual property, and personal identity losses amongst individuals, corporate organizations, and governments have become ubiquitous
2. Cybersecurity incidents, either intentional or accidental, can therefore severely disrupt essential services with huge cost to society – Average cost of a cyber-breach in 2022 was $4.35 million
3. It is estimated that cyber-crime cost the global economy around $7 trillion in 2022, and this number is expected to rise to $10.5 trillion by 2025
4. With an average of 97 cyber-crime victims per hour, this means there is a victim of cyber-crime every 37 seconds
5. Phishing remains the most common form of cyber-attack, with around 3.4 billion spam emails sent daily.
6. In Africa, cybercrimes recorded a massive rise in the first six months of 2022, “with phishing and scams hitting 438% and 174% in Kenya and Nigeria
7. The majority of cybercriminals are young people and are found in universities. Yahoo boys or G-Boys are youths involved in cybercrime using electronic e-mails
8. The EFCC has secured a total of 5,629 convictions between 2010 and 2021
9. As at September 2021, 80% of its 978 convictions were connected to cybercrime and cybercrime related offences (Guardian, 7/10/2021, para.1)
10. As of October 2022, the EFCC had convicted 2,847 persons of cybercrime across the country
11. The “convicted persons are mostly Nigerian youth” (The EFCC Chairman, 27/10/2022).
12. Most of the convictions were based on plea bargain arrangements

Major factors that contribute to the growth of cybercrimes in Nigeria includes;
1. Poverty
2. Greed/Avarice
3. Peer Pressure
4. Unemployment
5. Poor Upbringing
6. Weak Enforcement
However, there are some measures that had been set up by the Nigerian Government to combat the issue of cybercrime some of which includes;
1. The cybercrime Act, 2015
2. Nigerian Computer Emergency Response Team
3. Assessing the Scope and Scale of the Threat
4. The Nigeria Police Force Cybercrime Unit (2017)
5. Nigerian National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy
6. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
7. Awareness programs and prosecution of suspects

Conclusion:
1. The rate at which cybercrimes, especially internet fraud, is increasing in Nigeria pose ominous danger to civil society and the state
2. What marks out the cybercriminals operating internationally is their predominantly financial and economic focus
3. Committed mostly by the young, often called ‘Yahoo Boys’, a precursor of the infamous ‘419’ email scammers
4. There is an urgent need to improve the capacity of cyber security officials; Sharing of cyber security best practices; inter-agency collaboration; training for local law enforcement; and review of operational directives and procedures;
5. Finally, we cannot effectively defeat cybercrimes without addressing its drivers and vigorously prosecuting offenders
Suggestions/Recommendations:
1. Having data analysis of different cybercrimes in various parts of the states in the country could help the government to know focused areas of crime happening around the country and also provide an effective way to tackle them
2. Suspect everyone and everything (never feel too relaxed over anything)
3. Keep systems and applications up to date and apply the latest security patches. This will keep most malicious hackers and cybercriminals from gaining access to systems by using known exploits and vulnerabilities.
4. Never give out personal information, financial details or passwords in response to an email, when you receive an unexpected phone call or in response to a text message. set up spam filters on all of your accounts. don’t respond to emails or texts from unknown sources.
5. Always have a rule of intelligence
Finally, some codes to check for potential threat of being hacked was given to the attendees, some of which were;
1. *#62# – Check for call forwarding
2. ##002# – Cancel all call forwarding
TThe next session was facilitated by Mr. Salaudeen H on Cybercrime and State Spying in Nigeria
The session was interactive where participants were told to raise their opinions and ideas to questions asked through the use of “mentimeter” (www.mentimeter.com) as key source for taking opinions and suggestions collectively from the participants of the meeting.
He started by say that state spying requires that there must be a root of a threat which must be neutralized through awareness.
Focuses:
Sophisticated cyber-Actors
1) Spyware
2) Advance capability platforms deployed to infiltrate citizens
3) Defect and offensive operations
4) What are the exploit infrastructure?
The final Session was handled by Dr. Samuel O. Oyewole on;
YOUTH, CYBERCRIME AND THE THREAT OF BIASED-BASED PROFILING OF CITIZENS IN NIGERIA
Dr. Samuel started with the objectives of the presentation some of which were;
1. To examine the nexus between youth and cybercrimes in Nigeria
2. To identify pattern, victims, & agents of profiling in Nigeria
3. To assess the causes of biased-based profiling of youth in discourses and responses to cybercrimes in Nigeria.
He went on to talk about some conceptual clarifications regarding to Youths, Cybercrimes and Biased-based profiling of citizens.
He further presented a slide showing distribution by age-range of male and female youths in Nigeria in 2022
He added with some Rationales/Justifications for biased-based profiling of youthful citizens in Nigeria;
Professional justification
1. Preemptive
2. Deterrence
3. Weak institutional capacity
4. Personnel strength (quality & quantity)
5. Poor training
6. Motivation/pay
7. BBC – Born before computer
8. We must do something mentality
9. Misinformation & disinformation
Some of the consequences of biased-based profiling of youthful citizens in Nigeria includes;
1. Human Rights
2. Rule of law
3. Injustice
4. Predation
5. State institutional capacity
6. IT ecosystem
In conclusion;
1. Cybercrime is a major threat
2. Profiling is a normal act, but not biased-based profiling
3. Formal and informal institutions in (biased-based) profiling
4. Biased-based profiling and professional justification
5. Negative consequences
There were some Recommendations and suggestions which includes;
1. As a person, don’t be a victim
2. Security sector reform
3. Training of relevant personnel
4. Motivating relevant personnel
5. Equipping relevant institutions
6. Leadership
7. Political will and commitment
8. Responsible governance
9. Economic transformation
10. Human development
11. Public advocacy/education
