Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has raised the alarm over projections by multiple sources that the global loss to cybercrimes may reach a staggering $10.5 trillion by 2025, with approximately 2,328 cases occurring daily.

Olukoyede revealed this, yesterday, in Abuja at the National Summit on Cybercrime organised by the EFCC with the support of the European Union-funded Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (RoLAC II) Programme of the International IDEA with the theme, ‘Alternatives to Cybercrimes: Optimising Cyber Skills for National Development’.

He also noted that Nigeria lost over $500 million to cybercrime in 2022.

Head of Programme, International IDEA, Danladi Plang, in his remarks, offered an insight into how the negative use of technology for financial crimes and child pornography by Nigerian youths was giving the country a bad name internationally.

Noting the enormity of challenges posed by cybercrime, he regretted youth’s involvement in crimes as distorting and corrupting acceptable family values.

The tendency towards quick riches, the anti-graft czar added, no longer positions young people for enterprise, resourceful intellectual aspirations and technological innovations.

“The implication of all these is that, if left unchecked, cybercrimes portend grave dangers to the world. These are the realities stoking the commission’s fight against these crimes. Cybercrime accounts for a significant percentage of the 3,455 convictions recorded by the EFCC in my one year as chairman.”

On the alternatives to cybercrime, he said, “There are ample skills that can be optimised for national development. But the lack of serious cogitation on the alternatives has not made our youths shift their focus from criminal tendencies. There is the alternative of creative and innovative development of socially-beneficial applications that can deliver better prospects than Internet fraud.

“Today’s event is tailored towards exposing young Nigerians with strong tech skills to the opportunities that abound in various industries and sectors for legitimate wealth creation and honest livelihood. These opportunities can be found in the creative industry, tech ecosystem, financial services sector, medical services and even law enforcement.”

PLANG stated, “Cybercrime is a worldwide phenomenon. The digitalisation of various economic and social sectors in recent years led to an unprecedented increase in the collection and analysis of data.

“Therefore, as technology progressed, and our reliance upon it escalated, so cybercrime has intensified.”

According to him, Nigeria has a very youthful population versatile in the use of technology, who deploy the tech skill negatively in various forms, including digital financial crime.

He added, “This has not only given the country a bad name internationally but also a significant threat to the country’s financial system and increased crimes against the person including child pornography.”

While acknowledging the effort made by the EFCC and other law enforcement agencies in fighting cybercrime, Plang stressed the need to rethink Nigeria’s traditional approach of arrest, trial, conviction and imprisonment in fighting crime.

The EFCC boss also said, “The research I did earlier this year confirmed that cybercrime has become the third largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world with approximately 2,328 cases occurring daily.”