How Nigerians lost N25.5bn to e-fraud in four years
TECHDIGEST – Electronic-related financial crime is gaining massive ground in the country. Some reports have revealed that the menace have cost Nigerians over N25.5 billion in just four years.
Breaking it down, a non -governmental organisation, the Anti-Corruption Agencies of Nigeria, said each Nigerian loses the equivalent of N35,000 yearly on financial crimes.
It aggregated the loss to amount $18 billion when spread across illicit Financial Crimes like bribery, Internet fraud and non-payment of taxes.
However, the issue has become so worrisome in the Information and Communications Technology, ICT sector, that the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC can no longer have any of it.
At the weekend, during the Second Quarter Industry Consumer Advisory Forum (ICAF) in Lagos, the commission appeared to hold the telecom operators partly responsible, subtly warning them to improve on their networks’ security architecture or take the blame for the risk and threat posed by the rising menace.
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NCC believes that if the telcos improve on the security architecture of their networks, unwarranted access of such crimes will be effectively blocked.
The commission said unequivocally that it was no longer comfortable with the way Nigerians lose their hard-earned money to fraudsters, who take advantage of the vulnerabilities on their network platforms.
But in a swift response, the umbrella body of the telcos, the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators in Nigeria, ALTON, differed with the commission.
The association did not agree that the network architecture of the telcos has anything to do with the rising menace considering the huge investments operators have made over time in advancing their networks.
Executive Secretary of the association, Mr Gbolahan Awonuga, used the opportunity of a panel discussion on a paper titled: “Combating e-fraud in telecom platforms: Building consumer confidence in the digital economy” to push back the narrative which tends to heap the blame on the doorstep of the telcos.
