By Emmanuel Oladesu, Deputy Editor
Global Energy chief executive and former presidential candidate, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has said cyber security will play pivotal role in Nigeria’s competitiveness in the cyber market.
He said this would enable the nation to play a more strategic role in the cyberspace in the next 10 years.
In a keynote address he delivered during a book launch, titled: Nigeria: Cyber Power and National Security, written by Professor Dare Ogunlana of the University of Texas, United States of America (U.S.A), at the weekend, Olawepo-Hashim said the book would not have come at a better time than now.
The businessman noted that Nigeria is currently facing multifarious security challenges.
“Nigeria may have quietly emerged unsung as a Cyber power, unknown and unnoticed by many,” he said.
Olawepo-Hashim stressed that the country has become the sixth largest users of internet in the world.
He said: “According to verified data from the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Nigeria’s internet users rose to 104.4 million in 2021. A staggering 19 million users were added between 2020 and 2021 alone.”
According to the business mogul, Nigeria will play a more strategic role in the cyberspace within the next 10 years.
“As it transits to a producer of content for global consumption as well as a key participant in the global market for outsource services alongside with India and Brazil, Nigeria has an advantage – the mastery of English language by a sizable percentage of her population.
“Cyber security, therefore, becomes an important question of her competitiveness in the cyber market; the cyber market is the immediate future of Nigeria beyond oil and the Lekki Peninsula would be the world’s ‘Silicon Island’.
“Professor Dare Ogunlana’s work, Nigeria: Cyber Power and National Security, would not have come at a better time. This giant, Nigeria, is embroiled in its most ever crucial security issues, where different strains of insecurity are at their highest points, no less cyber terrorism,” he said.
While navigating through the book, Olawepo-Hashim noted that right from its introduction, the reader would be acquainted with the reality that cybercrime is real with examples of the attack on Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo’s Twitter account in August 2019, the Boko Haram hacking of the Department of State Security’s (DSS) database in 2012 and the Hacktivist’s assault on the Nigerian Army’s website.
“The ubiquity of cyber criminality is brought out in bold relief, thankfully. The author also reveals that there exists, already, a strategy of containment captured in the 2014 Nigeria cyber security strategy.
“In Chapter Two, the author measures the depth of the ocean of cyber threat and in Chapter Three, he presents a report of available technology to navigate and stay on top of this vast ocean of threat.
“Chapter Four is a review of how the cyber threat is played out in the era of COVID-19 pandemic, a time that has seen a phenomenal reliance on the cyberspace for Business, Health, Industry, Art and Culture and everyday usage.
“Chapter Five, the final chapter, contains policy recommendations for Nigeria and for Africa. In the author’s word: ‘Nigeria must (or should) enhance its cyber capabilities to remain relevant and be respected in the global community. Gaining the cyber security to prevent, defend and fight back quickly, recover when cyber-attack thus occur’,” he said.
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