Nigerian Government Launches Fresh Measures to Tackle Online Transaction Fraud

According to the Nigerian government, it is not giving up on developing policies to deter online fraudsters and foster confidence in online companies.

Among other countries, fraudulent actions have damaged Nigeria’s reputation, according to Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, or NITDA, who made this revelation.

The National Digital Trustmark is a Federal Government effort that aims to give Nigerian e-commerce and other online platforms a verifiable certification process or badge of confidence. The NITDA chief spoke at a press conference to introduce the concept.

The initiative would also block off criminal and fraudulent elements that harm and instill fear in online businesses, such as the actions of internet fraudsters, also known as Yahoo boys, who have seriously harmed the nation’s reputation, according to Abdullahi. The initiative’s goal is to provide safety for online buying and selling.

Abdullahi claims that the program extends beyond domestic internet fraudsters since nations like China purchase Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from Nigeria and other African nations and use them to perpetrate crimes in their own nations that appear to be committed in Nigeria or Asia.

He said the government is dedicated to boosting consumer confidence, encouraging fair competition, and raising Nigerian companies to international standards through NITDA in collaboration with its partners, including the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, or NACCIMA, and the German International Cooperation Agency.

“We’re working to establish trust by bringing the public and private sectors together to form partnerships and develop projects.

“Where international organizations and development partners can come and work with us to share best practices and also support what government and private sector are doing to build trust within the digital economy.” “What the private sector can do is tell the governments where there are challenges and suggest policies and regulations that can help to build trust within the ecosystem.”

Every business, e-commerce platform, government agency, and company will have a trust seal on their website to guarantee that they are legitimate and that people can quickly distinguish between cloned and genuine websites as part of the National Digital Trust Mark initiative, which aims to increase trust in our digital ecosystem.

Because of this trust mark, we should be able to tell which websites are genuine and which are clones, fakes, and so forth.

“When you direct and transact online, it will help to build confidence and trust that you are dealing with authentic website providers,” he stated.

Speaking further, Abdullahi emphasized the role that the media plays in redefining Nigeria’s image abroad.

He continued by saying, “Once we address these issues locally in Nigeria, it will also help us to rebrand our image internationally.”

He said that hearing foreigners call Nigerians scammers is hurtful.

Hearing that is quite upsetting. In addition, Nigeria has been ranked in the top five in the same category as the US, Russia, China, and Ukraine when it comes to cyber security, according to the Cybercrime Index.

It’s nice to fall into this category, so occasionally we say yes. How does that sound? Since their digitization is more advanced, it implies that there are additional obstacles associated with digitalization.

Occasionally, these unscrupulous actors are not even Nigerians. They observe that they may reach the IP of Nigeria. Foreigners were arrested in Nigeria for engaging in all of these yahoo. Chinese people are purchasing African and Nigerian IP addresses and utilizing them for criminal purposes. This is evident on the internet from African nations.

“There are a lot of complicated issues that we must examine and consider how we can work together to solve.”