A Tech Expert, Ms Confidence Staveley,  says Cybercriminal now leveraging on power of Artificial Intelligence, AI to wreak more havoc on soft target, urging businesses to improve their cybersecurity posture.

Staveley, said this at the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) Tech Event/Graduation Ceremony on Thursday 20th July, 2023 in Lagos. adsbygoogle || []).push({});

The Founder, CyberSafe Foundation, charges businesses to scale-up investments in cybersecurity to guard against cybercrime and other technological threats.

The NBCC event that had as its theme: “Emerging Trends in Tech and its Impact on Nigerian Businesses: Cyber Security and Data Analytics.”

The tech expert noted that Artificial Intelligence (Al) was making it easier for criminals to create convincing targeted phishing emails leading to a lot more business compromise attacks.

She added that cybercriminals were unleashing problems using stolen credentials and causing havoc for Nigerian businesses by breaking into multiple accounts.

Staveley emphasised the need for businesses to have the right culture and empower employees to protect against cyber threats to implement essential cybersecurity controls.

“Businesses must have a cybersecurity strategy and budget in place and must ensure that their cybersecurity posture is independently validated.

“They must also know all their digital assets and which assets are most important to their business and incorporate best practices for cybersecurity into new product designs,” she said.

Staveley also urged individuals to be careful about phishing emails and malwares they log into, saying cybercriminals have found a way to hack human beings instead of systems.

“To this end, individuals and businesses must be trained to be immune to these threats and change their account passwords as much as you can to guide against account compromise.

“Do things like two steps authentication, data encryption, just do the barest minimum to prevent your information from hanging low for criminals to access.

“Also, hire a cybersecurity professional to analyse where you are now and where you ought to be and create a road-map to safeguard against cybercrime,” she said.

Ms Bisi Adeyemi, President, NBCC, noted that several emerging trends in technology had the potential to impact business, especially in the areas of cybersecurity and data analytics.

She listed some of these trends as AI, Machine Learning, 5G technology, Internet of Things, edge computing, blockchain, cybersecurity automation and orchestration, data privacy and compliance.

Adeyemi noted that these emerging trends could have profound impact on businesses, offering both opportunities and challenges.

“It is thus crucial for organisations to stay updated on these trends, invest in cybersecurity measures and adopt data analytics to remain competitive and secure, in an ever-changing technological landscape.

“It also gives me immense pleasure that we are today graduating 22 participants from the second cohort of the NBCC Tech Academy, after three months of intense learning.

“I congratulate all our graduands and wish you all the very best in your various endeavours,” she said.

Mr Abimbola Owoeye, Country Lead, Del Technologies, urged organisations to be aware that their business footprints were left to whatever platforms they subscribed to.

According to him, to be unaware meant exposure to risks.

Owoeye charged Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to leverage some AI tools to lower the costs of running a business.

“In doing this, you would need platforms that would consistently keep your data secure and you can subscribe to Enterprise Resources Planning software as better and cheaper entry for you,” he said.

Mr Steve Asemota, Chief Data Officer, FirstBank, stressed the need for SMEs to leverage data to know the profiles to target and how to price products in emerging markets.

Source: NAN

For effective delivery of farm inputs, the Federal Government said it had taken steps to leverage the efficient implementation of the rebranded National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro-pocket, (NAGs -AP), .

Mr Ibrahim Arabi, National Programme Coordinator, Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja. adsbygoogle || []).push({});

He said that the proposed technology would ensure that farm inputs such as fertilizers, seeds, and agrochemicals, among others, got to the farmers across the country.

Arabi said: “We are using an ICT platform delivery system to leverage the system of distribution, we are going to include the farmers and farm inputs in the system to make it an ICT treatment and transparent.”

He said that the recent NAGS meeting was organised to sensitise farmers and fashion out the way forward in the implementation of the scheme.

“This meeting is on the strategy to support farmers with subsidised inputs and also with the institutional capacity for increased productivity,” the coordinator said

On whether the inputs were affordable, Arabi said the Federal Government was giving out about 80 per cent subsidy of the commodity to the farmers.

According to him, the government is using the ICT platform to ensure that farmers have smooth delivery of inputs for the 2023 farming season.

Arabi said that delivery of the inputs would be perfected and the mistakes of 2022 corrected to ensure a seamless delivery of the farm inputs.

Also speaking, Mr Ishaku Buba, Deputy Director, Growth Enhancement Scheme in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that the government was creating a system to evaluate its support to the farmers.

He said: ” We are creating a system whereby we will be able to see the impact of the government on the farmers.

”For instance, I supported you, I met you at this level, and I want to know the impact of what I have supported you with.”

Buba said the distribution of inputs would soon start, adding that the government was targeting the right time of farming activities.

On the cost of inputs such as fertilizers, he said that the cost was dynamic depending on the prevailing market price of the commodity.

“On cost, we look at the prevailing market price and put our subsidy based on that, we cannot fix the price in January and then use it now it is dynamic.

“We have looked at the climatic conditions, we know the procedures to follow for the planting season and we are targeting this period.

“The distribution of inputs will take two to three weeks, but we will start with the seeds. We’ll show the farmers how to apply the seeds very well so that we can get a better result from them,” Buba said.

Mrs Mary Afan, President of the Small-Scale Women Farmers Organisation (SWOFON), said that the women were waiting for the Federal Government to distribute the farm inputs.

According to her, fertilizer which was bought in the market at the rate of  N27,000 or N30,000 a bag in 2022, had increased to N35,000 and N38,000 per bag.

She urged the government to consider giving more incentives to the farmers so that they could increase production.

Meanwhile, the Fertiliser Producers, Suppliers Association of Nigeria (FEPSAN) has blamed the current hike in the price of the product on foreign exchange.

Mr Gideon Nagedu, the association’s Executive Secretary, said almost all the blending materials for fertilizer were imported.

Nagedu told the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja that the current policy on forex had drastically affected the price of the commodity.

According to him, in June, the price of a 50kg bag of fertilizer was as low as N18, 000, adding that at the moment, it had risen to N25, 000 to N26, 000. respectively.

Nagedu said:  “Interestingly prices of fertilizer have been fluctuating as a bag of 50kg fertilizer that sold as high as  N29,000 last year, just a month ago came as low as N18,000 and in some places N20,000.

“ But, suddenly a change in foreign exchange eventually skyrocketed the price of the product. Most of the blending materials for fertilizer are imported.”

In another development, some farmers in Abuja have decried the high cost of farm inputs, saying this would have a negative impact on food security.

They said only a few farmers have the resources to buy fertilizers and pesticides to apply on their farms.

Mr Adams Dogo, a farmer in Bwari Area Council said the price of a bag of fertilizer was high, contributing to the low crop production yield.

He said: “Most of us local farmers in the rural areas find it very difficult to buy fertilizers and pesticides that we need on the farm, most times we use local means to help boost our farms”.

Mrs Victoria Yohana, also a farmer, appealed to the government to ensure that farmers at all levels got access to farm inputs.

The President of the Potatoes Farmers Association (POFAN), Mr Daniel Okafor, said his members were yet to get fertilizers from the government.

Source: NAN

Author Profile

Abdulrahman Obaje

Prince Abdulrahman Obaje is a Media and ICT Consultant, Journalist, online marketer, social media strategist, Mathematician and Computer Scientist based in Abuja, Nigeria. He is the Founder and the Publisher of The Informavores!. You can reach me on +234 805 939 5252 or send i-witness report directly to me on news@informavores.com.ng.

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Any responsible government would do everything doable to protect its corporate existence and the safety of its citizens; and so, when the Nigeria Federal Government suspend the use of the microblogging social media, Twitter in Nigeria on the premise of “the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”, many elder statesmen that has foresight and or had worked for the unity of the country welcome it. adsbygoogle || []).push({}); adsbygoogle || []).push({});

This is not the first time a government is banning or suspending a tech company that is perceived as hostile and so Nigeria is not the only country that has slammed a kind of restriction on tech companies for the reason of protecting citizenry and corporate existence.

Recently in February 2021, the India government release new intermediary Guidelines for social media platforms and asked all platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to follow these rules. They were given three months to comply with the rules or risked being suspend.

Also In recent episode of the US-China geopolitical showdown, President Joe Biden is enforcing a new executive order that bans investment in 59 Chinese companies including Huawei effective from August 2. The new decision prevents US investments in Chinese companies with suspected ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Joining Huawei on the list is chip maker SMIC, telecom operator China Mobile, video surveillance company Hikvision, and a plethora of Chinese defense sector companies, . A senior US official confirmed that about 58 and that more Chinese companies will likely be added to the list in the months to come.

According to gsmarena.com President Joe Biden was quoted as saying, “I find that the use of Chinese surveillance technology outside the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the development or use of Chinese surveillance technology to facilitate repression or serious human rights abuse constitute unusual and extraordinary threats, which have their source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and I hereby expand the scope of the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13959 to address those threats.”, to that effect.

The core issue with Huawei has been concerns about its coziness with the Chinese government and fears that its equipment could be used to spy on other countries and companies.

Why the twitter ban, first of its kind in Africa’s most populous country strange is because it came two days after the social media giant deleted a tweet from President Muhammadu Buhari’s account for violating its rule

However, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, while maintaining the stand of the FG at the investigative hearing organised by the House of Representatives joint committees on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Values alongside the National Security, Justice and Commerce, on the controversial ban, had argued that the Nigerian government relied on the constitution, National Security Act, the Cybercrime law and Companies and Allied Matters Act, (CAMA) before it decided to suspend Twitter’s operations.

Alhaji Mohammed cited the activities of the Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, during the EndSARS protests as one of the reasons for the ban. It further said that Twitter also allowed it platform to be used by the proscribed Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) to promote seditious and terrorist activities.

At the hearing, the minister decried the role played by Twitter during the EndSARS protests last October, saying that it did not only retweet the messages of the protesters but also raised funds for them.

“During the EndSARS protest, the same Twitter played an unsavoury role, by making its platform to retweet, and not just retweet the messages of the EndSARS protesters, but raising funds for the EndSARS protesters, before it was hijacked by hoodlums,” he said.

Twitter has not come out publicly to refute all these claim!

The EndSARS protest caused wanton destruction and looting of properties running into billions of Naira across the country, with accompanying loss of live and perpetration of more criminal activities of varying degree; such as jail break.

However, some Nigerians are not seeing it that way. Unfortunately, Immediately after Twitter’s suspension, Twitter users in the country, through VPNs, flooded the platform to express their anger and disappointment, prompting the Nigerian attorney general’s office order for immediate prosecution of Nigerians who try to bypass the government’s Twitter ban after the government suspended its operations.

Other advocates call on the FG to lift the suspension immediately takuing into cognizance the negative effect of the Twitter suspension on Nigerians who depend on the platform for their livelihood,

Engr. Benjamin Femi however has divergent opinion. He said that, “Individual benefits from a use of a particular social media that has been proved to be causing more harm than good may not be significant considering the collective disadvantages and national interest in the long run.”

“There may be more to this. Aside the initial claim that twitter platform is being used for activities inimical to the corporate existence of Nigeria. Nigeria that has been celebrated as one of the few African countries attracting investment into its tech ecosystem was shunned when Twitter chose mere Ghana for its first African headquarters, which country will take that?” Benjamin further querried.

About 39 million Nigerians have a Twitter account, more than Ghana’s entire population of 32 million.

And so, one of the conditions given social media operating in the country is to establish office in Nigeria.

Twitter’s decision to choose Ghana over Nigeria was evident in a statement where the organisation described Ghana “as a champion for democracy, a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet”, and analysts said that this is a confirmation of Twitter’s decision not to choose Nigeria in the first place.

In 2021, as Nigeria ranked 120th out of 180 countries in the Reporters without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, Analysts expressed fear that Buhari’s administration is reminiscent of his 1984 military regime. That He imposed draconian legislation that allowed the government to imprison any journalist or civil society member guilty of “embarrassing” the country’s military leader.

Many are afraid that the FG is removing freedom of speech by gaging the social media platforms. Aljazeera quoted Alumona, a 24 year old Nigerian as saying that, “The way things are going, I’m scared as a Nigerian because we don’t know what’s coming next,” he said.

Aside this, there is nothing wrong in the FG protecting 39 million Nigerian twitter users and regulating the activities of social media platforms, just the way traditional media are regulated in the country. The FG also directing social media to also establish office in Nigeria if they want to continue their business in Nigeria does not look like a bad idea.

Social media should show a little more respect for their customers in Nigeria. Twitter for instance, does not prioritize their customer base in Nigeria when it took it Africa Head Office to Ghana. This is because a customer base of over 39 million users may need to be travelling to Ghana to resolve social media account issue if need arise. That is a substantial loss of revenue!

According to, Tom Chukwudili, “The current stand of the FG would sanitise the social media scape by eliminating fake news, hate speech and entrenching cultural value into social. It would also create opportunity and avenue for homegrown social media that truly understand Nigeria cultural value to thrive.”

“As a software developer, if you have any problem with integration of some of the social media components, it take months, if not years to fix. Because they are not here in Nigeria where you can easily go and complain to them in their office.”, Tom lamented.

As debate rages on activities and regulation of social media, we hope that the authorities come out with framework that would engender safe social media for all.

Author Profile

Abdulrahman Obaje

Prince Abdulrahman Obaje is a Media and ICT Consultant, Journalist, online marketer, social media strategist, Mathematician and Computer Scientist based in Abuja, Nigeria. He is the Founder and the Publisher of The Informavores!. You can reach me on +234 805 939 5252 or send i-witness report directly to me on news@informavores.com.ng.

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