The Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ola Olukoyede, has asserted that if left unchecked, cybercrimes portend grave dangers to the entire world, revealing that the global loss to cybercrimes may reach a staggering $10.5 trillion by 2025, with approximately 2,328 cases occurring daily.
Olukoyede made the assertion in his welcome address at the ongoing 2024 National Summit on Cybercrime, with the theme, “Alternatives to Cybercrime: Optimising Cyber Skills for National Development,” being held at the Banquet Hall of the State House in Abuja.
According to him, cybercrime accounted for a significant percentage of the 3,455 convictions recorded by the EFCC in his first year as Executive Chairman.
The chairman added that a significant portfolio of choice assets has also been recovered and returned to both local and foreign victims of cybercrimes by the Commission in the same period.
“Projections by multiple sources show that the global loss to cybercrimes may reach a staggering $10.5 trillion by 2025, with approximately 2,328 (two thousand, three hundred and twenty-eight) cases occurring daily.
“The implication of all these is that, if left unchecked, cybercrimes portend grave dangers to the entire world.
“These are the realities stoking the Commission’s fight against these crimes. Cybercrime accounts for a significant percentage of the 3,455 convictions recorded by the EFCC in my one year as Executive Chairman.
“A significant portfolio of choice assets has also been recovered and returned to both local and foreign victims of cybercrimes by the Commission,” Olukoyede said.
While debunking insinuations that EFCC is concentrating on fighting internet crimes, the chairman declared that cybercrime threatened Nigeria’s reputation and economic wellbeing.
In his words, “We are not oblivious of insinuations and misconceptions in some quarters that the Commission is concentrating its operational works on the fight against internet crimes.
“While this narrative is not really true, the fact remains that cybercrime threatens the nation’s most significant asset—its reputation and economic wellbeing.
“The losses by the financial services sector to cybercrime in the last three years are staggering. We cannot continue to sit idly and watch the integrity of our institutions compromised and our youths degenerate into uselessness.
“The future of our nation cannot and would not be allowed to hang in the balance. We must take collective actions against cybercrimes.”
Olukoyede submitted that there were ample alternatives to cybercrimes, adding that EFCC was completing work on a Cybercrime Research Centre where globally competitive research would be running as an alternative avenue of empowering Nigerian youths.
According to him, the Centre, which he said was the product of collaboration with foremost FinTech, Flutterwave, was envisioned as a learning, rehabilitating and refocusing centre for youths across the country.
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