New media platforms, constituting fast-pace and irresistible cyber culture especially to information-hungry young people, have revolutionized the mass media across the globe, but they have also established themselves in Nigeria as wild new communication channels where you put out whatever you wish for others to consume as they wish; in which case, every other consideration, including morality, can go to blazes.
“One of society’s great challenges will be to figure out how to create a balance between harms and benefits offered by global access to universal information,” says Henry Holtzman, a media lab researcher.
Another mass media practitioner, Nigeria’s own Ideumange John, brings the matter closer home, remarking, “The social media is alien to morally neutral technology and this explains why more often than not, its users lacerate the moral ligament of society. These areas of breach are commonly found in intellectual property, privacy, free speech and the manner in which images are manipulated for some nefarious ends.”
But here now comes a new body of rules detailing the multiple crimes that dark-minded computer-savvy individuals commit and the punishment they are to expect if they do not call it quits.
The Cybercrimes (Prohibition & Prevention) Act 2015 provides a comprehensive legal regulatory framework ‘for the prohibition, prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of cybercrimes’ in Nigeria. The Act promotes cyber security as well as protects critical national information infrastructure, computer systems and networks, electronic communications, data and computer programs, intellectual property and privacy rights.
What started as a cybercrime bill became a duly passed legislation on May 15 this year by president that time, Goodluck Jonathan as a response to various requests from Nigerians, particularly concerned stakeholders in information and communication technology (ICT) sector.
In the Act and under the provision for the protection of critical national infrastructure, it states that the president of the country may on the recommendation of the National Security Adviser and by order published in the Federal Gazette, designate certain computer systems and/or networks or systems, programmes or data vital to the country that the incapacity or destruction of or interference with, would have a debilitating impact on security, national or economic security, national public health and safety, ‘or any combination of those matters as constituting critical national information infrastructure.’
Distilled into its basic form, the otherwise highly technical legal document features wrongdoings and respective penalties as follows:
Offences against ‘critical national information infrastructure’, 10 years with no option of fine; grievous bodily harm to any person, 15 years without option of fine; death of person(s), life imprisonment; unlawful access to a computer, five years or a fine of not more than N5 million or both fine and imprisonment; electronic fraud or online fraud using a cybercafé, three years imprisonment or a fine of N1 million or both; system interference, two years or a fine of not more than N5 million or both fine and imprisonment; intercepting electronic messages, e-mails, electronic money transfers – seven years in the first instance and ‘upon second conviction shall be liable to 14 years’; willful misdirection of electronic messages, three years or a fine of N1 million or both; and unlawful interceptions, two years or a fine of not more than N5 million or both such fine and imprisonment.
The term information infrastructure refers to the communications networks and associated software, driven by the internet, which support interaction among people and organizations in a country.
Other listed cybercrimes and the punishment to accompany them include computer-related fraud, three years or a fine of not less than N7 million or both; theft of electronic devices, three years or a fine of N1 million or both fine and imprisonment; unauthorized modification of computer systems, network data and system interference – three years or a fine of not more than N7 million or to both such fine and imprisonment; electronic signature in respect of purchases of goods, and any other transactions: seven years or a fine of not more than N10 million or to both fine and imprisonment.
Cyber terrorism under the new law attracts life imprisonment, while ‘fraudulent issuance of e-instructions’ is to earn the criminal seven years in jail. Identity theft or impersonation is to draw seven years imprisonment or N5 million fine or both, while child pornography and related offences come with a 10-year sentence or a fine of not more than N20 million or both fine and imprisonment.
For cyberstalking, an offence which describes the act of anyone who harasses a victim using electronic communication such as e-mail or instant messaging (IM), or messages posted to a web site or a discussion group by relying on the anonymity of the internet to allow them to stalk their victim without being detected, the penalty is N7 million or imprisonment of not more than three years or to both such fine and imprisonment. For cybersquatting, a term which means using a domain name with intent to profit from the goodwill of another person’s trademark, there is two years of imprisonment or a fine of not more than N5 million or both.
Importation and fabrication of e-tools attracts a three-year jail term or a fine of not more than N7 million or both, while breach of confidence by service providers attracts N5 million fine and forfeiture of further equivalent of the monetary value of the loss sustained by the consumer. Manipulation of ATM/POS (point of sale) terminals is to cost the convicted criminal five years imprisonment or N5 million fine or both, while a punishment of three years of imprisonment or N1 million fine or both awaits anyone caught phishing (attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details), Spamming (use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited messages, often repeatedly), as well as spreading of computer virus are to attract three years imprisonment or a fine of N1,000,000 or both.
Electronic card frauds are punishable under the Cybercrime Act as follows: seven years or a fine of not more than N5 million or both such fine and imprisonment for the offender who will be liable also to ‘payment in monetary terms the value of loss sustained by the owner of the credit card’; dealing in card of another, three years’ imprisonment or a fine of N1 million and further liability to ‘repayment in monetary terms the value of loss sustained by the cardholder or forfeiture of the assets or goods acquired with the funds from the account of the cardholder’. Purchase or sale of card of another will attract a N500,000 fine and liability to ‘payment in monetary terms the value of loss sustained by the card holder or forfeiture of the assets or goods acquired with the funds from the account of the cardholder’.
The Cybercrime Act 2015 requires the establishment of a Cybercrime Advisory Council to facilitate the implementation of the Act while the office of the National Security Adviser is designated as the coordinating body ‘for all security and enforcement agencies under this Act’. And the Federal High Court ‘located in any part of Nigeria regardless of the location where the offence is committed’, is given the jurisdiction to try offenders under the Act.
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