Stakeholders call for mentoring over losses to fraud 

Stakeholders that included lawmakers, financial experts and economists have raised alarm over the growing rate of fraud in the country, maintaining there was need for mentoring to tame the menace.

This was because despite the negative impact of Coronavirus in 2020, Nigeria and other countries, according to the Internet Crime Complaint Centre of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, lost over $4.1b to fraudulent activities, especially cyber scam, identity theft, Internet romance scam and business email compromise, among others.

The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) similarly noted that Nigerian banks lost N3.5b between July and September 2020 to fraud-related incidences, representing a 534 per cent increase from the same period in 2019, which was N552m.
   
Speaking at the launch of a new book, “Mentoring In Academia and The Civil Service For Fraud Prevention in Nigeria,” edited by Prof. Kabiru Dandogo, Senator Gabriel Suswam lamented that the country is heading for the worst with imminent collapse, if leaders fail to mentor younger generations.

He equally raised concern over loss of quality in the nation’s civil service system, stressing there was urgent need to make the system productive and efficient, while taming fraudulent activities.
  
Suswam noted that the country requires necessary help, as it has been running huge deficit budgets.  “Mentoring is what our political leaders should do to the younger ones. Nigeria is changing and changing very fast. If we don’t properly mentor younger ones, of course in the next 10 years, one will wonder whether we will still have the country together. In America, there are deliberate efforts to mentor younger generations.”
 
Former Accountant General, now Managing Consultant, JK Consulting Limited, James Naiyeju, noted that lack of mentoring accounts for the growing rate of fraud in Nigeria. “A lot of people are committing fraud because they are far away from what we call ethics of the society,” he said.
  
He stated that people must be made to account for the source of their wealth, adding that building a strong system and taken necessary actions as citizens, especially submitting to mentors would go a long way to limit fraud in the country.
  
Africa Tax and Legal Services Leader, PWC, Dr. Taiwo Oyedele, insisted that mentoring remained one of the critical things Nigeria needed currently.
   
According to him, mentoring has to cut across academic institutions, private and public sectors, stressing that people needed to be mindful of the fact that being celebrated as leader does not translate to getting everything right. 
   
One of the book reviewers, Prof. Olajumoke Halisu, noted that taming fraud would increase the nation’s prosperity and advance unity, faith, peace and progress.