Impact of Cybercrime on National Development: A Review on Nigeria

Abstract

Humans will continue to seek ease of life and consequently record breakthroughs in
diverse aspects of life. Often, this growth and development will have its positive and
negative sides, one of which is cybercrime. The internet with its benefits has a plethora
of downsides and it has wrought a lot of havoc on socioeconomic and political
wellbeing of nations. The drive of every nation is to develop to its full capacity and
potentiality, but this among other factors continues to act as a stumbling block to this
development. This work will consider the impact of cybercrime on national
development in a bid to recommend ways of curbing cybercrime and positioning the
national interest before individual interest which hampers the direction of national
development including an examination of the legal instrument of control both locally
and at the international plane. In the end, this study concludes that the growth of
cybercrime in relation to fraud is a digital pandemic that will continue to spread in
Nigeria in the years to come if offenders are not dealt with according to law, to serve as
deterrence to intending offenders. The research methods employed are derived from
secondary sources such as the internet, textbooks, journals and articles within the area
under study; governmental material from law enforcement, intelligence and policy
communities, and non-governmental sources like reputable global cyber security
vendors, consultancy companies and academia or research institutes (secondary sources
were reported using the triangulation process). The retrieved data from books, journals
and newspapers were analyzed using content analysis.