Cybersafety: Nigeria committed to eliminating fraudulent activities in online transactions –NITDA

*The Federal Government announces the National Digital Trustmark, an initiative designed to provide a verifiable certification mechanism or badge of trust for e-commerce and other online platforms while providing safety for online transactions in the Nigerian economy

Gbenga Kayode | ConsumerConnect

In a move to avert further damage to its image in the global digital space, the Nigerian Government has assured citizens that it is not relenting on creating proactive measures to disorientate fraudsters in cyberspace, while creating credible online businesses.

ConsumerConnect reports Malam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), disclosed this at a press conference to announce the National Digital Trustmark.

Online shopping concept

NITDA described the National Digital Trustmark as an initiative of the Federal Government, designed to provide a verifiable certification mechanism or badge of trust for e-commerce and other online platforms in Nigeria.

Inuwa also averred that fraudulent activities had dented the image of Nigeria in the comity of nations.

In regard to the objective of the initiative, the Director-General of NITDA explained the initiative is aimed at providing safety for buying and selling online, would also block off fraudulent and criminal elements who cause harm and create fear for online businesses.

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These, he stated, include the activities of Internet fraudsters, otherwise known as “Yahoo Boys” in local parlance, who have caused serious damage to the country’s image in the international system.

He further said that the National Digital Trustmark initiative transcends Internet fraudsters within the country.

According to Inuwa, countries such as China also buy Nigerian and African countries’ Internet Protocol, IP, addresses, and use them to commit crimes in their countries, and it would look as if they were in Nigeria or within Africa.

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The Nigerian Government, through NITDA together with its partners like the German International Cooperation Agency and Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), is committed to strengthening consumer confidence, promote fair competition, and elevate Nigerian businesses to global standards, Inuwa said.

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He also stated: “We are trying to build trust through the public, private partnership where we can get the public and private work together to come up with initiatives.

“Where the private sector can come and tell the governments where there are challenges and suggest policies and regulation that can help to build trust within the ecosystem.

“And where international organisations and development partners can come and work together with us to share best practices and also support what government and private sector are doing to build trust within the digital economy.”

The NITDA Chief Executive restated: “The National Digital Trust Mark is an initiative designed to build trust within our digital ecosystem, where every company, every e-commerce platform and every business, every government organisation, will have a trust seal on their Web site to ensure they are authentic Web sites where citizens can easily differentiate between clone Web sites from the authentic original websites.

“So, with this trust mark, we should be able to identify which one is actually an authentic Web site and which one is clone, which one is fake, and so on.

“It will help to build confidence and trust that when you direct and transact online, you are dealing with authentic website providers,” he said.

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Emphasising the significance of the media industry in projecting Nigeria positively to the global community, Inuwa noted: “Once we address these issues locally in Nigeria, it will also help us to rebrand our image globally.

“It really hurts to hear that, and also, if you look at even globally, cybersecurity, according to the Cybercrime Index, Nigeria has been planted among the top five in the same category of Ukraine, Russia, China and US.”

The Director-General further stated: “Yes, sometimes we say yes, it’s good to be in this category. What does that mean?

“Because they are advanced in terms of digitisation, but it means that digitalization also comes with its own challenges.

“Sometimes these bad actors, they are not even Nigerians. They see that they have access to the Nigerian IP.”

Inuwa explained: “We have a situation whereby foreigners were arrested in Nigeria doing all this Yahoo.

“We have a situation whereby Chinese are buying Nigerian IP addresses, African IP addresses, and using them to commit crime and on the Internet, it will show like these are from African countries.

“So these are all complex challenges we need to look at and how we can address them together.”

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