'Sakawa' Calls For Teamwork

The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of Nigeria, has appealed to governments in the sub-region to devise means of sharing information on the movement and activities of cybercriminals in the region.

According to Mrs Farida Waziri, it was easier to solicit and share information on cybercrimes and other criminal activities from security agencies in developed countries than in West Africa and Africa as a whole.

The woman behind the crack-down on corrupt public officials in Nigeria, many of whom are serving prison terms, said “there is the need for free-flow of information and intelligence from all security agencies in order to combat crime effectively on the continent”.

“Currently, we do not even know who to contact for information when the need arises. This is serious because the criminals are getting smarter, sophisticated and proactive,” Mrs Waziri said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic in Abuja, Nigeria.

She said criminals were getting more sophisticated each day and were collaborating with each other to commit more sophisticated crimes, and stressed the need for collaboration to fight them back.

She suggested the formation of a forum where information on criminal activities would be shared on a daily basis to protect the region from criminals.

“If we sit inactive, we would be taken by events. It is important we do not sit, wait and take action only after the criminals strike. We must strike first,” Mrs Waziri emphasised.

Touching on the EFCC’s fight against crime, she said the Commission had made tremendous progress in the fight against corruption to the extent that most suspects had either been convicted or were currently standing trial.

She also disclosed that some foreign companies operating in Nigeria were currently being investigated for allegedly paying bribes to public officials in order to secure contracts.

The EFCC, in conjunction with Microsoft, is currently organising a West African Cyber Crime Summit on the theme: 'The Fight Against Cyber Crime: Towards Innovative and Sustainable Economic Development.”

More than 300 delegates, mainly law enforcement personnel from 10 West African countries, are attending the three-day summit.

The objectives of WACCS are to position the fight against cyber crime as a national priority to help the economic development of the region, provide a platform to develop capacity building with scalable and sustainable solutions, strengthen trust by developing partnerships among various stakeholders at the national and international level, and showcase best practices and case studies of partner organisations in combating cyber crime.

The other organisers of the summit are the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) with the Council of Europe, International Police Organisation (INTERPOL) and Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in attendance.