Federal Government Steps Up Efforts to Eliminate Internet Fraud in Financial Transactions

According to the Nigerian government, it would not back down from developing policies that will deter online fraudsters and foster confidence in online companies.

The disclosure was made by Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, or NITDA, who pointed out that fraudulent operations have damaged Nigeria’s reputation among other countries.

At a press conference, the head of NITDA announced the National Digital Trustmark, a Federal Government effort aimed at giving Nigerian e-commerce and other online platforms a verifiable certification system or badge of confidence.

The program, which aims to make online buying and selling safe, would also keep out criminal and fraudulent elements that hurt and intimidate online businesses. These elements include the actions of internet fraudsters, also known as Yahoo boys, who, in Abdullahi’s opinion, have seriously harmed the nation’s reputation.

Abdullahi asserts that the endeavor extends beyond domestic internet fraudsters since nations like China purchase Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from Nigeria and other African nations and use them to perpetrate crimes in their own nations that appear to be committed in Nigeria or Africa.

He said that the government is dedicated to boosting consumer confidence, encouraging fair competition, and raising Nigerian companies to international standards through NITDA in collaboration with its partners, including the German International Cooperation Agency and the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines, and Agriculture, or NACCIMA.

By bringing the public and private sectors together to collaborate on projects, we hope to foster trust.

“Where international organizations and development partners can come and work with us to share best practices and also support what government and private sector are doing to build trust within the digital economy.” “Where the private sector can come and tell the governments where there are challenges and suggest policies and regulations that can help to build trust within the ecosystem”.

“Every company, e-commerce platform, business, and government organization will have a trust seal on their website to ensure they are authentic websites where citizens can easily differentiate between clone websites and the authentic original websites as part of the National Digital Trust Mark’s initiative to build trust within our digital ecosystem.”

Thus, we should be able to determine which websites are genuinely authentic and which are clones, fakes, and so on with the help of this trust mark.

He stated that “it will help to build confidence and trust that you are dealing with authentic website providers when you direct and transact online.”

Abdullahi went on to stress the role that the media plays in repositioning Nigeria internationally.

He continued by saying, “Once we address these issues locally in Nigeria, it will also help us to rebrand our image globally.”

Hearing foreigners call Nigerians scammers stings, he said.

It’s quite upsetting to hear that, because if you look at cyber security even worldwide, Nigeria is ranked in the top five, alongside the US, Russia, China, and Ukraine, according to the Cybercrime Index.

Yes, we occasionally agree that it’s advantageous to fall into this category. But what does that mean? Since they are technologically advanced, digitalization entails its own set of difficulties.

These bad actors aren’t always Nigerians. They can see that the Nigerian IP is available to them. We have a situation where foreigners were detained in Nigeria for engaging in such foolish behavior. There is a scenario where Chinese people purchase IP addresses from Nigeria and Africa and use them to commit crimes. This is evident on the internet from African nations.

Therefore, we must examine these intricate issues and determine how we might work together to resolve them.