Cybercrime is an illegal criminal activity carried out by means of a computer or a computer technology, and the Internet. Cybercrime is a fast-growing area of crime. Many individuals are exploiting the speed and anonymity of the Internet to commit a diverse range of criminal activities that know no limit.
The youth are usually described as leaders of tomorrow. Many peoples agree that the youth themselves are a reflection of the society. The nature of the socio-political and economic environment which prevails in the country has imposed constraints in terms of meeting the needs and aspirations of the youth.
It is very glaring that no country aspiring to greatness can afford to ignore the contributions of its youth or allow them to constitute a major threat to the realization of its policies and programmes. Unfortunately, the current social, economic and political trends have left a sour taste in the mouth of the youth; particularly, those from poor social and economic backgrounds.
The internet is a cloud based medium that enables dissemination of information internationally among millions of users through a network connecting computers and other devices. Simply put, the internet is the connection of various independent computer networks for communication. The advent of internet has brought unprecedented breakthrough in every sphere of human endeavour; providing a medium for distance learning, serving as a source of income, enable business transaction and online business advertisement etc. It can be easily accessible, inexpensive and afforded by most.
In spite of all these expensive purpose serve by the internet, it has numerous very bad sides” which is Cyber Crime. The convenience associated with IT and the Internet is now being exploited to serve criminal purposes.
Cybercrime is an illegal criminal activity carried out by means of a computer or a computer technology, and the Internet. Cybercrime is a fast-growing area of crime. Many individuals are exploiting the speed and anonymity of the Internet to commit a diverse range of criminal activities that know no limit. These criminal activities ranges from illegal downloads of multimedia documents, creating and distributing viruses and malwares as well as stealing people’s identities, to posting confidential business information online and hacking and stealing millions of naira from an online bank account, among others.
Very importantly, cybercrimes are of different categories. They range from Yahoo boys and their 419 Internet frauds; hacking; software piracy; pornography; credit card or ATM fraud; denial of service attack; virus dissemination; phishing; cyberplagiarism; cyberstalking; cyberdefamation, among others.
One may be wondering why the youth engage or involve in cybercrimes in Nigeria. Interestingly, cybercrimes like other criminal activities are highly motivated by certain conditions. There are many factors that contribute to many of Nigerian youths actively engaging in cybercrime. To many, it has become their occupation, means of survival and source of livelihood because of lack of employment opportunities in the country. The high level of unemployment in Nigeria tops the list of reasons why they engage in it.
According to youth unemployment rates released by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2022, about 53.40 per cent of Nigerian youths are unemployed. So therefore, unemployment contributes gigantically to why many of Nigerian youths engage in cybercrime. This is more so, especially among university graduates who become frustrated after graduating for several years without getting job. Such youths become readymade materials to be engaged in cybercrime.
The number of poor people in Nigeria continues to grow at an exponential rate, while Nigeria remains the poverty capital of the world. As a result, cybercrime has become a haven for youths. The festering of cybercrime increases the chances of cyberterrorism, hate speech proliferation, and radicalization
Poverty contributes immensely to high rate of Cybercrime in Nigeria as it creates a fertile ground for people for individual to resort to illegal activities in order to make ends meet.
Not only these there are other factors such as poverty, peer/societal/parental pressures, and the desire to get rich quickly culminate in why they involve in cybercrime.
The effect of cybercrime are enormous and mind-boggling. Consequences to include destruction of data, loss of productivity, thefts of money, intellectual property and personal data, disruption of business activities, restoration and deletion of data and systems, reputational harm and embezzlement.
In Nigeria, cybercrime causes a lot of damage to the country’s international image and reputation. Many Nigerians who travel outside the shores of the country are daily subjected to undue stigmatization and name-calling because of the activities of some Nigerian cybercriminals. Many Nigerians are treated without honour, respect and dignity, because some foreigners see and treat people of Nigerian extraction as scammers, fraudsters, dupes, 419ers, etc. Such demeaning characterization has done incalculable damage to the international image of Nigeria.
Not only this, financially, cybercrime has done grave damage to Nigeria’s economy, as the country is believed to have lost an estimated $9.3 billion to cybercrime in addition to other potential financial losses emanating from erosion of consumer confidence and the stalling of foreign direct investment. Estimately, more than $80 billion is lost to software piracy annually in Nigeria describing the trend as one of the fastest-growing online scams largely perpetrated by young Nigerians.
How can Cybercrime can be battle in Nigeria? It is well know that cybercrimes cannot be easily rule out in Nigeria but they can be minimize. It calls for the collective efforts of all the stakeholders like individual corporate organisations and government to nip the scourge in the bud. Government at all levels should also ensure that its laws apply at cybercrimes. It is important that Nigeria as a nation takes measures to ensure that its penal and procedural laws are adequate to meet the challenges posed by cybercrimes. Not only this, government should ensure that policies are formulated and strictly adhered to irrespective of the status and personality of the people involved. I believe that creation of job opportunities for the teeming unemployed youth will minimise the imminence drastically.
In conclusion, having discussed all of the above, I urge the Nigerian youth to refrain from scam-related businesses. Doing so would help to reclaim and represent the country’s glorious image. Suggestively, the Internet space has several legitimate businesses from which the youth can do to earn money. Likewise, there are valuable skills they can possess to harness monetary opportunities.
Abdulazeez Toheeb Olawale is a 300-Level student of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto (UDUS).
