‘Nigerian cybecrime law deficient’
Some lawyers and Information Technology stakeholders have said that the recently passed Nigerian Cybercrime Act 2015 is socially deficient.
But the stakeholders who converged at a Technology Outlook series in Lagos recently to review the cybercrime law equally described the law as a milestone in the country because this was the first time Nigeria is having a legal framework to guide its affairs in the cyberspace.
The Cybercrime Act 2015 was signed by former President Goodluck Jonathan on May 15, to curb criminal activities on the internet.
The new Cybercrime Act stipulated that any crime or injury on critical national information infrastructure, sales of preregistered SIM cards, unlawful access to computer systems, Cyber-Terrorism, among others, would be punishable.
The keynote speaker who reviewed the law at the the event, Barrister Basil Udotai listed some legal constraints in the act to include decentralised and distributed enforcement framework, compliance, NSA act, impact of the cyber security fund doubtful, technology specifically, unnecessarily transactional in certain areas and special provisions on the financial sector and dangerous tendency for shifting focus.
He said the 2011 cybercrime draft act would have been better than the passed 2015 act which has a lot of social deficiencies.
According to him, while the Act provides a sigh of relief to telecoms subscribers and operators there is need for all the stakeholders to work together to protect the internet link in the country against fraudsters.
He said that the cooperation would be key way through which the digital economy would be protected and carried on with essence of legal framework.
He said: “The cybercrime Act though long in coming and beset with certain challengeswhich may be applied to effectively tackle Nigeria’s cybercrime and cybersecurity challenges. But deliberate efforts have to be made by the key players working with stakeholders to make this reality.”
Head of Legal Service, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr Emmanuel Edet said it was very important to have the law in place adding that it would allow the government to curb the online related crimes.
Edet said the Law should take the cognisance of all definitions as there were lots of interest in the system but certain fundamental flaws in act should be addressed to meet international standard.
He called on stakeholders to engage all relevant authorities and agencies to find away the law would be relevant in Nigeria.