From Mike Tayese, Yenagoa

The Minister of State for Police Affairs, Imaan Sulaiman Ibrahim,  has promised to draft Dr. Tombari Sibe and Prof. Christian Kaunert, who recently launched a book, Cybercrime, Digital Forensic Readiness and Financial Crime Investigation in Nigeria’, into Federal Government’s Committee on National Policing Policy.

Sibe, who is a lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering, Rivers State, University, is a Cybersecurity/Digital Forensic expert, with over two decades of professional experience in Information Technology Consulting while Kaunert is Professor of International Security in the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland.

The Minister insisted that experts like Sibe and Kaunert were needed in the committee, which she said was under formation.

She said the authors would provide inputs on cybersecurity frameworks for the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).

The minister, who was represented by her Senior Technical Adviser on Policy and Strategy, Mike Imafidor, during the book launch, said the ministry was focused on driving police reforms through the integration of advanced technologies.

The Minister said: “Another significant element is the development of a national policing policy, with the committee currently being formed.

“We will extend an invitation to Dr. Sibe and Professor Kaunert to join the committee, particularly in the section focusing on cybersecurity and technology adoption within the NPF.

“The aim is to establish a framework for technology integration, avoiding isolated systems that are difficult to connect and ensuring smooth interoperability.The goal is to create a policy that guarantees the sustainability of these technological efforts”.

Sibe in a statement made available to our correspondent confirmed the development saying the book addressed the country’s unique challenges and presented  a comprehensive plan for forensic readiness to fill a  gap in the country’s cybersecurity infrastructure.

He said: “Most often, we look at human forensic capabilities only from a budgetary perspective—how much do we have in the budget? How much can we plan for building this registry? But we often don’t take a long-term view in terms of building financial readiness, operational readiness, or any other kind of readiness we need.

“A key outcome of this study is to establish a clear, articulated roadmap for building forensic readiness. Another important contribution is identifying knowledge, skill gaps, and training needs.

“We spoke to some of the top cybercrime investigators in this country, and special thanks go to the agencies that contributed. This allowed us to pinpoint the specific gaps that need to be filled.”

He said that the book further discussed cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and blockchain and highlighted the challenges and opportunities of such technologies.

Providing more insights on why they authored the book, Sibe said: “Nigeria has witnessed a surge in cybercrime incidents, and this has been quite disturbing. Apart from the financial loss suffered by victims of cybercrime, Nigeria as a nation also suffers from reputational damage.

“Despite spirited efforts by Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies, the caseloads continue to grow exponentially. This has left the nation with an unfortunate tag as one of the hotbeds of cybercrime.

“This has been further complicated by the lack of coordinated research on the actual dynamics and complexities of the cybercrime surge in Nigeria.

“Most of what we know about Nigeria’s cybercrime landscape is what is reported on the pages of the newspapers; but newspapers only tell a tiny bit of the story. So, the authors saw an obvious gap in lack of coordinated research on the nature of cybercrime in Nigeria.

“In filling this gap, we decided not just to rely on the easy part of harvesting and synthesizing mostly the anecdotal accounts from the open source, but to get a deeper perspective from the law enforcement agencies in the front lines of the fight against cybercrime. Therefore, this study was structured as a case study”.

On why cases of cybercrimes continued to increase in the country and the uniqueness of their new book, Sibe said: “One of these is the apparent lack of digital forensic resources by the cybercrime investigating institutions. While a few studies have highlighted the lack of forensic resources among financial crimes institutions in Nigeria, no study had investigated in detail the specifics of this lack, and the impact on financial crimes in Nigeria.

“In addressing this, this book investigated this from a law enforcement point of view. Specifically, the authors investigated the digital forensic readiness of the two leading institutions, responsible for investigating and prosecuting financial crimes in Nigeria—the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigeria Police Force.

“Good knowledge of the scale and scope of the lack of digital forensic resources is an essential first step to developing a digital forensic readiness model or digital forensic capability maturity model, and this book attempted to provide this foundational knowledge”.

Sibe, who is also a Visiting Fellow of the University of South Wales, United Kingdom,  noted that the book also  investigated the specifics of the caseloads and conviction records and looked  out for trends and patterns supporting or refuting them.

He said the book further probed other cybercrime complexities in Nigeria, such as common cybercrime taxonomies, prosecution, and conviction dynamics, juxtaposing it with select case studies in other jurisdictions.

He recalled that the journey to the book started in 2019 when he was doing a Ph.D at the University of the Cumberlands, USA.

He expressed their gratitude to the EFCC, the Nigeria Police Force for their assistance as well as other institutions that supported the research work.