Cybercrime and Olukoyede’s passion for youths, By Tony Egbulefu

EFF Chairman, Mr Olanipekun Olukoyede.

At the moment, the EFCC boss has set in motion groundwork for the establishment of a Cybercrime Research Centre in the Commission’s New Academy in Giri, Gwagwalada Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory. The initiative takes strong roots in his desire to redirect the youth onto the path of ethical values and further entrench financial integrity in Nigeria’s cyberspace.

Not too long ago, Mr Akintunde Sawyerr, managing director/chief executive officer of Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) was a guest of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Having received the sum of N50 billion from the Federal Government, drawn from EFCC’s pool of Proceeds of Crime to boost President Tinubu’s students’ loan scheme, Sawyerr came to the Commission to express his appreciation of the anti-corruption efforts of the EFCC and the vision of its Executive Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, in bringing new dynamics and charting new frontiers in the anti-corruption fight.

Apart from NELFUND, the Federal Government, it could be recalled also credited another new entity, the Consumer Credit Corporation (CCC) with an equal sum, also from EFCC’s pool of recovered funds, which by reason of Olukoyede’s new approaches, have stacked to a record high in both local and foreign currencies within his one year in office.

The students’ loan and credit schemes are special welfare instruments of the Tinubu government, with the former envisioned to lessen the burden of the cost of education on parents and self-sponsored students, as well as the allure of cybercrimes to youths in tertiary institutions, who often claim they are drawn to Yahoo Yahoo as a way of buffering their finances against disruptions that come from inadequate sponsorship.

A recurring decimal in Olukoyede’s policy objectives and institutional actions is a desire to take the minds of Nigerian youths away from cybercrimes. His first shot at redemption of Nigerian youths from cybercrimes was with a national dialogue titled, “Youth, Religion and the Fight against Corruption,” held on 31 January, just barely four months after his assumption of office.

The approximately 600 guests drawn for the event comprised all vice chancellors of Nigerian universities and provosts of other tertiary institutions. Drafting academics, who are character moulders into the anti-corruption war is both strategic and foundational in Olukoyede’s drive for an infusion of anti-corruption studies in higher education curriculum, towards the emergence of a new youth demography that is nurtured on the sound ethical values of industry and application, probity and accountability.

However, seeking to reorient the minds of Nigerian youths away from cyber criminalities and in the same breath intensifying enforcement against the same population demography is a tricky combination that Olukoyede has been approaching with savvy and innovative institutional frameworks.

At the moment, the EFCC boss has set in motion groundwork for the establishment of a Cybercrime Research Centre in the Commission’s New Academy in Giri, Gwagwalada Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory. The initiative takes strong roots in his desire to redirect the youth onto the path of ethical values and further entrench financial integrity in Nigeria’s cyberspace.

As a hub for advanced research, training, and capacity building in the fight against cybercrimes, the Centre will focus on the three key areas of Advanced Fraud Detection and Prevention, Youth Empowerment and Capacity Building, and Technological Advancement and Resource Facility.

These three broad areas will involve developing and deploying cutting-edge technologies to detect and prevent financial fraud and offering specialised comprehensive training for law enforcement officers and relevant professionals in the effective combat of modern financial crimes. They will involve joint research initiatives and policy formulation to enhance the understanding and regulation of financial crimes and provision of a platform for the exchange of ideas and best practices among stakeholders in the public and private spaces; create a repository of advanced tools, technologies, and resources to support financial crime investigations, including modules for addressing emerging threats from cryptocurrency-related crimes.

Remarkable is that the Centre is primed to take in an estimated 500 youths at a time, providing them training, research opportunities and requisite skills to navigate and excel in today’s global and digital economy.
The promise the Centre holds for the enthronement of secure online financial transactions, drew the involvement of the US-based Flutterwave, a leading financial technology company in the project’s execution, with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on 14 June in EFCC headquarters between the fintech company and the Commission.

A delegation of US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), led by its Director, Mr Christopher Gray, and comprising Charles Smith Jnr, Sydney Schaur, Joshua James Moldt, William Michael Miller, Vanessa M Tibbits, William B Stevens, Leigha Ramson, Sofie Admire Sosenzweig and Dr Jim Oscar were on hand to witness the signing.

Also of importance to Olukoyede is seeing to the possibility of youths convicted of internet crimes, overcoming the opprobrium and inhibitions of the status and attaining their full potentials in the society. He is getting around this with a multi-dimensional approach that includes a special collaboration with the Nigerian Correctional Services (NCS) and a deployment of the instrument of the Cybercrime Research Centre.

Addressing a delegation of Citizenship and Leadership Training Centre, an agency of the Ministry of Youth Development recently, the EFCC boss affirmed a hunger to ensure that Nigerian youths convicted of cybercrimes get rehabilitation opportunities, reinvent themselves and overcome the odium of ex-convict tag. “We have a plan to rehabilitate convicted internet fraudsters with lesser sentences. The plan is to work with the Custodial Centres to make them useful and more productive in the society. When you think deeply, that tag ‘ex-convict’ is not a good one. You can never tell where you would find yourself tomorrow and they would want to profile you and discover that you are an ex-con. So it is in the interest of the youth that the EFCC is doing what it is doing to prevent them from indulging in the heinous act of cybercrime,” he said.

Besides rehabilitation, the EFCC chairman is fashioning out a programme of reorientation with equal zeal. “I have said it that we are trying to put together a Cybercrime Research Centre in our Academy that would accommodate quite a number of them in their hundreds where we would reorient them and see how we can add value to their lives. We are working on that. Even though it is not strictly within our mandate, it is not what we cannot take up. And it is important to me,” he stated.

Tony Egbulefu is of the Public Affairs Directorate of the EFCC.