Last month’s alarming news of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) conducting the ‘biggest arrest in one day’ by nabbing 792 crypto fraudsters, including 599 Nigerians and 193 foreigners in Lagos State, which has since gone viral on social media outlets deserves both commendation and a thorough appraisal.
That of course, includes the pertinent reasons for the recurring ugly rise of cybercrime that has got Nigeria ranked as the fifth country, globally behind Russia, Ukraine, China and the United States.
That ranking, being the first-ever World Cybercrime Index (WCI), was produced by researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of New South Wales, Canberra. It was reported in April this year.
But do the vicious perpetrators, mostly rudderless youths, care a hoot about their image, that of their families, communities and the country at large?
No, they are not bothered about the importance of branding and its fanciful principles. For them life and living is all about acquiring as much wanton wealth as one can possibly do, and in the shortest time available too.
They are not bothered even if it is more by crook than by hook. Driven by the Machiavellian principle of the end justifying the means, these rudderless fraudsters do not bat an eyelid about morality; the unfailing significance of spending quality time to get requisite knowledge in sync with one’s God-given talents to be honed as skills to bring out the best, instead of the beast in them!
Propelled by the illusion of an opulent lifestyle; of owning and driving flashy cars, living in magnificent mansions and enjoying globe-trotting escapades in the company of their beauty queens is their driving passion.
In fact, to them life is a shortdistance dash. Not that of a long-winding race taking many people to nowhere.
And to make it easier for them to attempt to reap from where they never sowed, even a seed of hard work, honesty of purpose or through the deployment of their creative ingenuity in the right way is the alluring era of Information Technology (IT).
All they have to do is spend some time learning how to unravel the networks that connect the rich and their resources, identify the weak links and hack into them.
So deaf they are to the warnings given by the moralists – that is if they have ones as parents, teachers, pastors, preachers and imams – of the unavoidable day of reckoning that they eventually fall into the well laid traps of the anti-graft agency, the EFCC as they have done. So, for us it is big kudos to the eagle-eyed agency for doing
Foreigners are taking advantage of our nation’s unfortunate reputation as a haven for fraudsters to establish a foothold here to discharge their atrocious criminal enterprises
a thorough job, by unveiling the hatchet crimes committed by the fraudsters and saving several people and organisations millions of their hard earned resources. And from mental agony as well.
Yet, some burning questions are flaring for answers. For instance, with regards to the latest heist by the EFCC to nab as many as 792 crypto fraudsters, how was it possible for them to conduct their crimes without having some financiers?
Why, for instance, have they refused to learn lessons from the fate of their predecessors who could not avoid the net of the Commission?
Beyond finding credible answers to these questions and more, is the need for the EFCC to partner with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find out how 148 Chinese, 40 Filipinos, two Khazartans, one Pakistani and one Indonesian found their way into our country without a thorough check on their trades.
But that is not all there is to stemming the ever rising tide of cybercrime. On the mental scale, it has become imperative for the youths involved to understand the crying need to change their IT skills from the negative to the positive.
Instead of allowing themselves to be taught on how to initiate romance and investment scams and use fake identities to defraud others of the fruits of their sweat, they should rather learn from the helpful hands of some well-known IT icons such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and our own Silas Adekunle.
That is precisely so on how to convert their skills to products useful to mankind through which they would rake in their billions in dollars. That is without cheating on fellow human beings.
Also important is for parents to get more inquisitive on the types of jobs their children delve into and do the needful to prevent involvement in cybercrimes.
Also needed is for Nigerians to become more circumspect with regards to the romantic interests and investments they get themselves into, all in the queer quest for come-quick riches.
For instance, the fraudsters were using a shopping platform called www.yooto.com to cheat on their victims. All said, all hands must be on deck, right from the home front, through the educational and religious institutions to business organisations to protect the image of our dear nation, Nigeria.
That is because, as the Executive Chairman of the EFCC, Ola Olukayode, rightly highlighted through his recent press statement on the arrest of the crypto currency investment and romance fraudsters, our image is at stake.
As he stated: “Foreigners are taking advantage of our nation’s unfortunate reputation as a haven for fraudsters to establish a foothold here to discharge their atrocious criminal enterprises.” But enough is indeed, enough.
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