FG moves to overhaul cybercrime law over AI threats
The Federal Government has commenced moves to overhaul Nigeria’s cybercrime legislation to address emerging threats from artificial intelligence, including sophisticated online fraud, digital surveillance and attacks on critical national infrastructure.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, said the Federal Ministry of Justice developed a draft executive bill to strengthen the country’s legal framework for investigating and prosecuting cybercrime.
Fagbemi made this known in a message delivered on his behalf by the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation, Rotimi Oyedepo, at the second International Cybersecurity Conference held in Abuja on Tuesday.
“The Federal Ministry of Justice has advanced work on a draft executive bill to strengthen our legal framework,” he said.
The conference, organised by the National Information Technology Development Agency and the Nigerian Communications Commission, was themed ‘Cyber Resilience in the Age of AI: Defending Minds, Networks and Nations’.
Fagbemi explained that the proposed legislation would address technological developments, improve the preservation and exchange of electronic evidence, and strengthen cooperation among law enforcement agencies.
He said the initiative built on Nigeria’s accession to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, engagement with the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime and consultations on the existing Cybercrimes Act.
According to him, cybercrime has expanded beyond conventional internet fraud to include cryptocurrency-related offences, sextortion, child exploitation and AI-assisted deception.
“Our objective is clear: laws that respond to emerging technologies, facilitate the preservation and exchange of electronic evidence, support effective investigation and prosecution, and uphold human rights and the rule of law,” he stated.
The minister maintained that stronger enforcement powers must not undermine fundamental freedoms.
“Security must protect liberty, not become an excuse to undermine it,” he added.
Also speaking, NITDA Director-General, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, disclosed that the agency was collaborating with the Office of the National Security Adviser and the National Assembly on reviewing the Cybercrimes Act.
“We’ve been working with the Office of the National Security Adviser, the National Assembly to review the Cybercrime Act and repeal it to get more legislative power to do more with what we have,” he said.
Abdullahi explained that the government was also considering a national cybersecurity architecture prescribing minimum protection standards for organisations.
He warned that criminals increasingly exploited human vulnerabilities through AI-generated voices, videos and images rather than attacking computer systems directly.
In his keynote address, the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Aminu Maida, warned that AI-powered cyberattacks could disrupt telecommunications, financial services and government operations.
Represented by the commission’s Executive Commissioner for Technical Services, Sunday Oshadami, Maida said criminals were deploying automated attacks, deepfakes and increasingly sophisticated malware.
“We are no longer defending against human hackers operating at human speed; we are confronting machine learning systems operating at microsecond computational speed,” he said.
He cited reported cyberattacks on supermarket refrigeration systems in France and spyware targeting at least 45 devices belonging to journalists and media personnel in the Middle East.
Maida said the NCC had established a Computer Security Incident Response Team and introduced a cyber resilience framework prescribing security standards for licensed telecommunications operators.
Culled from The Punch
