The Dean, School of Science and Technology, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, Dr David Dimoji, on Monday called on the National Assembly to make law that will criminalise internet hacking in Nigeria.
In an interview in Aba, the Don noted that unless the trend was checked through legislation, it would soon cause crisis in the economic sector.
Already, NITDA had revealed that over 10, websites were hacked last year and millions of naira lost in the process.
Dimoji however, frowned at the increasing trend in bank account hacks, saying only a law criminalizing the act in every measure reduce the rate at which some ICT compliant persons hacked into devices without authorisation.
According to him, “Some states are establishing laws to punish kidnappers and now that the issue of hacking is becoming a very common offence, I want to believe that the privacy act is not enough”.
“The privacy act says that if you get access to a document or data you are not entitled to access, it is an offence. But I want Nigeria to go beyond the privacy act to make a special law that would punish hackers.
“This is because a part of our problems, especially in the economic circles today is resulting from the activities of hackers. They hack into anything including your bank accounts, and if nothing is done to stop them, they can cripple an economy,” he said.
Another way to raise education and IT awareness is to for governments and institutions in the country to invest more in digitisation and ICT development to meet the needs of the time.
Dimoji regretted the lack of foresights of current political leaders who had refused to budget enough for computerisation to equip youths to have access to computer-based jobs, querying, “What percentage of our annual budget is allocated to digitisation or ICT? We are still doing things in the analog way”.
“What I am saying is that the presidency and national assembly should make a special budget for computerisation, digitisation and ICT development. If we do that, we will move forward.
“Some of our youths are still analog while the world has long turned to digital, that is why most of our youths are not employable,” Dimoji summed.
