March 17, 2023

The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, on Thursday, March 16, 2023 reiterated the resolve of the Commission to build the capacity of its personnel to effectively combat the emerging trends in cyber security.

Bawa stated this during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, between the EFCC and the Nigerian Internet Registration Association, NIRA led by its President, Muhammed Rudman, at the EFCC Head Office, Jabi, Abuja.

According to him, the MoU would further boost the understanding of his personnel on the modern trends in cyberspace and assist the Commission’s investigations.

“We are very proud to collaborate with you because we realize that part of our mandate is collaboration. We need relevant stakeholders whether in government or private sector to achieve our mandate”.

The EFCC boss, while expressing delight over the collaboration, said that the EFCC had a well-equipped Academy to sustain the training.

“I find this MoU very appealing. I accept your collaboration and we are ready to start as soon as possible. We have a well-equipped Academy to carry out this training and I advise that the training is not only onset but also online so that many people can join, even other agencies can benefit from this using our platform, he added.

Earlier, the President, NIRA, Muhammed Rudman said that the purpose of the MoU was to strengthen collaboration between his Association and the EFCC. According to him, there was a huge gap between NIRA and law enforcement agencies, which needed to be bridged.

“We have law enforcement agencies locking up Registrars when there are cyber security issues in terms of websites based on the crimes perpetrated by end users. So, to protect our Registrars from having gaps with law enforcement, we identify EFCC as the right partner to provide capacity building to address these gaps in terms of cybersecurity awareness and general knowledge of ICT”, he said.

He added that when the MoU was fully implemented it would benefit not only the EFCC but other agencies as well.

“To be honest with you we want to kick start this project as soon as possible to give high level capacity building on the internet and how it works, to address the needs of Law Enforcement Agencies, using EFCC as an umbrella body to bridge the cybersecurity gap”, Rudman said.