In a bid to ensure that sanity is maintained in Nigeria’s internet circuit, the National Information Technology Development Agency in June 2022 unveiled a Code of Practice for Online Platforms to checkmate the eruption of crisis in the nation’s ICT sector.
While tapping from the benefits and dividends brought about by Tech Giants, stakeholders and regulators must be mindful of the effects associated with their unrestricted activities, especially in a multicultural society like Nigeria segmented along religious, ethnic and regional divides. Now that Nigeria is pushing towards a cashless economy in which monetary transactions are done through the internet, cybercrimes may increase if appropriate measures of curtailing the act are not put in place. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that $600 billion is lost to cybercrime each year, an increase from a 2014 study that put global losses at about $445 billion.
The emergence of online social media platforms made it feasible for information to be disseminated easily without impediments, a development capable of compromising our cyber and national security. Over the years, the platforms in Nigeria have been misused as perfect avenues for disseminating dangerous information.
It is still fresh in our minds, how Soliu Majekodunmi, an Ogun teenager arrested in January, 2022, on the account of slaughtering his girlfriend for suspected money ritual made a daunting revelation that he learned the practice through a Facebook post.