business0602

32 BUSINESS DAY
Tuesday 02 June 2015
Markets & Finance
Nigeria’s indifference raises
concern amid global cyber warfare
DAN OJABO TECH Security Forum (NCSF
2014) last year was keen
to highlight the growing
Ni g e r i a ’ s
rather indifferent
position
to the
cyber warfare
brewing amongst nations
and multinationals
is stirring fresh concerns
among industry watchers.
Analysts, who continue to
bemoan the presidency’s
failure to expedite action
on the final passage of the
Cybercrime Bill, fear that
the country could be in dire
danger in the near future
if it continues to drag its
feet towards tightening its
cyberspace.
Cyber security experts
earlier predicted an increase
in cyber crimes last
year (2014) in line with the
growing usage of the internet
globally – with Nigeria
ranking 8th behind the
likes of China, US, Russia,
Brazil, etc. Taiwo Longe,
Chief Information Security
Officer, Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN), while speaking
at the National Cyber
The discussion
about unemployment
in political
debates around
the world has finally landed
in Nigeria. A lot of this
was seen in the run-up
to the 2015 presidential
elections, with a considerable
part of the fact-based
debates anchored on jobs
created as against jobs that
could be created.
A lot has been said of
the definition of an unemployed
person and how
unemployment is measured,
which varies from
country to country. Some
countries count insured
unemployed only, some
count those in receipt of
welfare benefit only, some
countries count those who
choose (and are financially
able) not to work, supported
by their spouses
and caring for a family,
some count students at
college and others use
household surveys to estimate,
each with its own
strengths and weaknesses.
rate of cyber crimes in the
country.
“With the growing threat
of cyber criminals, the need
for a policy framework to
address the menace has
become more imperative
now than ever before,” he
said.
Cyber warfare is a deliberate
action by a nation-state
or international
organization to attack and
attempt to damage another
nation’s computers
or information networks
through, for example, computer
viruses or denial-ofservice
attacks hit a new
height in 2014, with the
huge cyber-attack on Sony
that crippled the company’s
film division being the
most prominent.
In Nigeria, cyber attacks
were reported to have targeted
mostly banks and
other financial institutions,
oil and gas firms as well as
government agencies, as
the ugly trend continues
to soar on at an average 14
Employment in Nigeria: Unemployed or Underemployed
ANALYSIS
Nigeria to all intents
and purposes, aligns with
the definition of the International
Labour Organization
(ILO), which also
uses household surveys
in estimating the number
of unemployed. The ILO
states that unemployment
refers to those who are currently
not working but are
willing and able to work
for pay, currently available
to work, and have actively
searched for work. This
definition however puts
a spin to what the results
of a job creation survey in
Nigeria would be; due to
the social make-up of the
Nigerians. A recent study
by the Gates Foundation
and the Clinton Foundation
showed that Nigerian
women lead the pack of
female entrepreneurs in
the world and are 4 times
more likely to become
entrepreneurs than their
counterparts in the US.
The reasons quite frankly,
are simple, as while the
US and many developed
nations have unemployment
benefits and other
social security income for
their citizens, the social
safety nets in Nigeria simply
don’t exist; so, it’s down
to two simple options: to
work or to starve.
This easily explains why
Sub-Saharan Africa has
the highest labour force
participation rate in the
world, according to the
ILO’s 2015 employment
trends report, estimated
at 70.9% – compared with
a global average of 63.5%
in 2014. In addition, unemployment,
at a rate just
under 8% in 2014, is expected
to remain stable
across the region through
to 2016. The youth-to-adult
employment ratio is 1.9
– the lowest of all regions
worldwide and without a
doubt, Sub-Saharan Africa
has the highest rate
of working poverty and
vulnerable employment
across all regions.
Again, one seeks to ask,
how this can be so with Africa
exhibiting the highest
poverty rates in the world.
The answers lie in the definitions
and targeting of
core unemployed people
(those who are currently
per cent on a year-on-year
basis.
Between year 2000 and
2013, Nigerian banks have
lost an estimated N159
billion to cyber crimes according
to reports by the
Nigerian Inter-bank Settlements
Systems (NIBSS).
The Central Bank of Nigeria’s
report for the first
half of 2013 indicated that
there were 2,478 fraud and
forgery cases involving
Nigerian banks valued at
over N20 billion. This represented
an 8 percent increase
over the previous
year volume but a considerable
increase in value of
over 200 percent from 2012.
Cyber specialists
McAfee Labs in recent report
claims cyber warfare
will no longer remain the
domain of Great Powers,
with small nation states
and even terrorist groups
expected to have a go at
it more frequently in the
coming years.
The report predicts that
2015’s uptick in cyber warfare
applications will pose
a direct threat to governments
and civilians alike,
adding that there will also
be a focus on gathering
valuable intel on highprofile
people and intellectual
property as well as
operational intelligence’ by
terrorists and small states.
Analysts have consistently
maintained Nigeria’s
weak legal framework in
a global village has continued
to offer a leeway
for cyber criminals who
more often than not use
the country as a base from
which to target developed
economies.
“Many cyber criminals
use emerging markets like
Nigeria as a base from
which to target developed
economies. This is often
because while the tools –
bandwidth and internet
connections – are in place,
enforcement agencies
don’t have the ability to
regulate these illegal activities,”
Pfungwa Serima, CEO
SAP Africa, told Business
Day in an earlier report.
Eugene Juwah, executive
vice chairman, National
Communication
not working but are willing
and able to work for
pay, currently available
to work, and have actively
searched for work) and the
public’s mental addition of
the sub-regions underemployed
population (people
not having enough paid
work or not doing work
that makes full use of their
skills and abilities). While
the number of underemployed
people remains
high within the region,
the unemployment rate
remains low.
Mr. Oladele, a secondary
school teacher in Lagos,
when asked how many
unemployed people(by
definition) he knew, responded
by saying the
society doesn’t have much
room for such individuals.
“If you don’t work, you
don’t eat” he said, “even
the bible states that. Of
course there are a few fresh
graduates looking for white
collar jobs who can fall into
this definition, but hunger
doesn’t keep them there
for long, as before long
they are forced into the
streets to hustle a living for
Commission (NCC), who
spoke at the National Cyber
security Forum 2014 held
in Lagos and organised by
the Office of the National
Security Adviser, said that
multi-stakeholder partnership
was essential to
the development of robust
public policies required to
combat cyber crime in the
country. He added that the
global economic loss due
to cyber crimes and cost of
system repairs as a result
of cyber attacks ran into
billions of Naira annually.
As the Nigerian economy
heads towards a cashless
society, the adoption of
e-banking is undoubtedly
necessary. E-banking users
are a potentially attractive
customer segment for
banks in the country. In a
bid to tap into this potential
market segment, banks
must address the issue of
cyber attacks. An emphasis
should be laid on the
deployment of fraud detection
solutions which could
help guard against fraud
and also protect customers
against e-channel frauds.
themselves”.
Yomi Fawehinmi, a pastor,
says that he encounters
one unemployed person
to every five employed
persons, as he executes his
pastoral activities. He believes
that more should be
done to improve the quality
of jobs in the region, as
more and more people are
falling into the underemployment
numbers, all in
the name of finding a job.
“My driver finished his
HND since January”, he
said, “His school has 2
batches of graduates that
haven’t served, with his set
to make the April batch of
next year, that the definition
makes him employed,
even though he is underutilised,
is just unacceptable”
Lead Economist and
Acting Country Manager,
World Bank, Mr. John Litwack,
also believes that Nigeria’s
employment challenge
is more of underemployment
rather than
unemployment. This submission
which is also contained
in the World Bank
report entitled ‘Nigeria
Accordingly, Bank security
measures should
be positioned along the
domains of preventive,
detective and response
measures and in the areas
of people, processes and
technology, particularly in
high risk technical areas
such as email servers, ERP
systems, Web application
servers and several others.
A number of developed
economies have created
a national cyber security
strategy in the past five
years. They are also developing
information-sharing
mechanisms to detect and
respond to cyber threats
swiftly. An example is the
UK Fusion Cell, which
brings experts from government
and the private
sector together in an information-sharing
and threatanalysis
hub.
Analysts estimate global
losses to cyber crime to
be over $400bn annually
and recent cyber attacks
on Sony, JP Morgan Chase
and a handful of other U. S.
Banks is an indication that
cyber crime is here to stay.
Economic Report’ showed
that poverty reduction in
Nigeria was primarily an
urban phenomenon as
poverty remained high in
the rural areas.
What are the realities
however? It is that both underemployment
and more
importantly unemployment,
be stamped out in
Nigeria, as contract staffing
and precarious work is a
major problem besetting
decent work and social justice
in the Nigerian work
environment. The shift
away from regular employment
into temporary work
or jobs through agencies
and labour brokers is having
a deep impact on all
workers, their families, and
on the society. Erosion of
the employee-employer
relationship, often the basis
of labour law, is leading
directly to a growing
number of violations of
workers’ rights. So, while
Nigeria continues to focus
on reducing the unemployment
rate, a bigger and
more pertinent challenge
of underemployment, continues
to stare it in the face.