By Seun Adams
The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr. Kashifu Abdallah Inuwa,
has said the agency is set to summon an all critical stakeholders summit geared towards addressing cyber crimes.
According to him, this is in furtherance of its mandate as contained in Section 6 (l) of the NITDA Act 2007, which mandates it to propose policies and legislation to improve cyber security.
He explained further that the critical stakeholder session will assess ‘our collective performance in preventing cybercrimes with a view at proposing ideas and policies to combat this scorching menace of cybercrimes.’
He said: “We urge all stakeholders to prepare proposals and ideas to improve preventive measures to curtail cybercrimes.”
In a statement he signed, he called on stakeholders of ICT including finance, security regulators, banks, payment infrastructure and aggregator companies to work together with the agency to entrench positive cyber security practices and propose policy solutions to buck this trend.
Following allegation of cyber crimes committed by some Nigerians by FBI, the agency said its attention been drawn to reports in international media indicting scores of Nigerians for cybercrimes in the United States (U.S).
In a statement signed by the DG, said: “We also note a recent publication of a foreign-owned software company hitherto operating in Nigeria indicting its Nigerian employees for lack of integrity and duplicity.
“For the avoidance of doubt, NITDA is resolute that the action of a few individuals does not represent thousands of hardworking professional Nigerians with exemplary careers in Information Technology.
“Nigerian technology entrepreneurs, start-ups, scale-ups, and midsized companies have continued to blaze the trail in innovation and service provisioning in Africa and the world.”
According to NITDA, thousands of Nigerian professionals who currently work and contribute to the development of innovation and information technology in leading multinationals operating globally, should be celebrated.
The added that NITDA is concerned that knee jerk reactions following these allegations may lead to poor treatment of Nigerians living outside Nigeria or denial of certain financial services that may hamper economic growth or frustrate investments into Nigerian companies especially start-ups who need investments to sustain innovation.
He said: “It is grossly unfair to taint an entire nation with a single brush for the alleged crimes of a few.
“We, therefore, encourage other nations who are friends of Nigeria to caution their local authorities from treating innocent Nigerians travelling or living in other countries in a derogatory manner or denying Nigerians services without proof of any crime.
“NITDA also acknowledges the hard work and commitment of several law enforcement agencies including the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC) for their dedication to investigations and prosecuting cyber criminals.