Peter Okoye, PBA Journalism Mentee
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has adopted a new strategy of training cybercrime offenders on useful skills to curb the increasing cybercrime in Nigeria.
The EFCC Academy Commandant, Commander CE Ayo Olowonihi, disclosed on Wednesday, April 5, 2023, that the Commission has begun the process of training cybercrime convicts to make use of computers and the Internet to earn a legitimate income.
Olowonihi, who spoke at a two-day Workshop on Investigation and Enforcement Skills for Effective Regulatory Roles for senior personnel of the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, said the measure was aimed at curbing the upsurge in cybercrime despite the efforts being made by the Federal Government of Nigeria toward combating economic and financial crimes.
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He lamented that cybercrime is gaining popularity to the extent that some parents do intentionally enrol their children to learn cybercrime skills.
“The problem we are dealing with is so huge that we now have parents who take their kids out of formal school and enrol them into Internet fraud training centres popularly known as Yahoo-Yahoo school. … The IT Skills that these young men and women have, they just use it negatively so we have got to do a lot of enlightenment and value re-orientation,” he said.
In his remark, the Director General, National Broadcasting Commission, (NBC), Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, thanked the Executive Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa for the support his commission received from the EFCC.
The cybercrime convicts who participated in the event were trained in various aspects of Investigation, including Cyber Crime Laws, Public Relations and Fake News Detection. Others include Emotional Intelligence, Alternative Dispute Resolution, NBC Act and case Studies.
The participants are expected to take the advantage of the training to turn a new leaf and make legitimate use of cyberspace.
