Chapter One, Two, Three, Four & Five (Muh'd)
Chapter One, Two, Three, Four & Five (Muh'd)
INTRODUCTION
technology (ICT) all over the world in the past twenty years has led to the stage
where information is digitally imprinted both physically and virtually and can
be accessed remotely by anyone with the right telecommunication tool. This has
given rise to the rapid demand for free, open and global access to information
by users.
has now provided various platforms for criminal activities on the internet.
Coupled with the fact that laptops, computers, smartphones, tablets and internet
connectivity are becoming more and more affordable to the larger group of
people all over the world. various platforms such as social media, emails, dating
websites, online stores, Mobile Banking, Trade and service websites, and social
engineering has ensured that users have their data online and accessible for ease
of transaction with life and this has greatly increased the rate of crimes being
committed on the internet by mostly youths from developing nations that see it
1
These technologies and information allow enormous gains and efficiency,
those that innocently take advantage of the system and new situations.
result of the high rate of unemployment and other social factors that keep the
youths among the Nigerian population idle, coupled with the ‘Get Rich Quick
syndrome’. This makes the youth explore their skills in the cyber world and
how they can benefit from it and not be caught knowing that there are no proper
Crime Act of 2015. It is yet the most recent form of legislation combatting
cyber-crimes in Nigeria. Before this Act, the various agencies tackling cyber-
crime hinged on Section 419 of the criminal code, which was insufficient. Thus,
Nigeria.
marred by the evolution of new waves of crime. The internet has become an
environment where the most lucrative and safest crime thrives. Cybercrime has
2
become a global threat from Europe to America, Africa to Asia and to the other
phenomenon that for now lives with us in Nigeria. With each passing day, we
witness more and more alarming cases of cybercrimes in Nigeria, with each
new case more shocking than the one before. Hence, it is on this basis that this
Nigeria.
iv. How does cybercrime affect the economy of Suleja, Niger state.
international system,
operating in Suleja,
vii. Suggest solutions that will further help in formulating policies that will
3
1.4 Research Questions
following research questions were posed by the researcher to guide the study.
iii. What are the methods adopted by government and its agencies on
prevention in Suleja?
policies and techniques which are likely to yield better results in curbing cyber-
crime in the country, it will be useful for pupils to identify the causes of their
crime and its wanton effect on growth and development, it may constitute the
basis for further researches in this problem area and related areas, and it will
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1.6 Scope and Limitations of the Study
This scope of this study is withing the confines of Causes and Prevention
of Cyber-Crime in Suleja and its limitations include, but not limited to;
i. Time: The period of time allowed for this work was short that the
ii. The researchers in the course of data collection, had to put in extra effort to
iii. Financial Constraint: There were financial and transit constraints. The
research was solely funded by the researcher, thus, he was faced with
struggling to make ends meet in this deteriorating economy, study for final
This study is divided into five chapters. The first chapter contains the
background of the study, the statement of the research problem, the objectives
of the study and the research questions that will guide the study. Chapter two
present literature review on the subject matter. Chapter three is the research
design, methodology, data source and model specification while Chapter Four is
based on data presentation and analysis. Chapter Five, which is the last chapter,
5
presents the summary, conclusion and recommendations of the research
findings.
The technical terms defined here are based on their usage in this study.
They include:
violation of trust.
Cybercrimes Against the Government: The growth of the internet has led to
various crimes and cyber terrorism with the aim of compromising the
and cause a number of other damages e.g. Wiki Leaks who illegally
to the media.
Cybercrimes Against the Society: Any unlawful act done with the intention of
causing harm to the cyberspace or society at large, the cyber space can be
Youth: It is when a young person is young especially the time before a child
becomes an adult.
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CHAPTER TWO
FRAMEWORK
There has been a great dispute among scholars and experts on just what
universal agreed-upon definition of cybercrime does not exist. At the basic level
crime’ and ‘IT crime’ and be discussing the same and/or different concepts,
rapidly become a generic descriptor for any online wrongdoing (whatever the
and denial of service attacks to malware (McCusker, 2006). Also, it has become
especially common when dealing with computers to coin new words simply by
(Woimann, 2015). Thus, this has led to creation of confusion among the related
8
Nevertheless, cybercrime has been described as any activity in which
(ITU,2015). But the problem with this definition is that it is too broad. For
example, if one uses a keyboard to commit battery, it does not mean that a
cybercriminal act has been committed. Also, according to the National Crime
networks (NCPC, 2012). This definition is not very explicit because ‘any
system itself is the target (Clifford, 2001). This definition is too narrow. Some
the commission of the crime. Another scholar (Ferrera, 2001) defines computer
computer technology is always but not necessarily needed for the commission
a computer network, especially the internet. Loader and Douglas (2001) also
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through global electronic networks. This definition is quite flawed in the sense
that cybercrimes are not always conducted through global electronic networks.
Cybercrimes, like hacking, do not require global electronic networks for them to
be perpetrated.
narrow terms or in broad terms. During the 10 th United Nations Congress on the
narrow and broad sense were developed. Cybercrime in a narrow sense was
target the security of computer systems and the data processed by them. While
defines computer related crime as ‘any illegal act for which knowledge of
human interface.
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cybercrime as a harmful activity, executed by one group (including both
systems and/or the internet and targeting the computers, IT infrastructure and
computer crime and can be defined as the crime that is committed through a
network.
cybercrime are prevalent the impact the television media play in the cyber-
crime rate cannot be over-emphasized. He opined that the youths are aware of
many opportunities for individuals and organizations to develop but at the same
time, has brought with it new opportunities to commit crime. He argues that the
enforcement expertise.
dysfunctional to the country, he concluded that evidence abound that is not only
the persons that are duped that suffer for this, the immediate family dependants
as well as the society where these victims are from, directly feel the effect of
this act. The perpetrators country, also suffers the image problem, even to the
to the country. Hence, the companies that ought to have established and
crimes include urbanization and negative role models. Okeshola and Adeta
(2013), opined that defective socialization, peer group influence, weak laws,
easy access to internet, poverty, etc. are the major causes of cybercrime in
Nigeria. However, Tade and Aliyu, (2011) identified the following as the causes
of cybercrime.
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1. Gullibility/greed of the victims: Generally, victims of cybercrimes are
usually greedy and gullible. Because of their greed, they make no inquiry
before venturing into transactions. This owing to the fact that, they want
panacea for trailing fraudsters by having their past records on finger tips
and locating their movement with ease. This has been lacking in Nigeria
until recently that SIM cards registration and other forms of data base
from INEC, Road Safety, and NIMB are beginning to be put in place.
4. Porous nature of the internet: The Internet is free for all with no
fake or hidden identity. In fact, anonymity has made the internet porous
and set the stage for anarchy, rancour and acrimony in the cyberspace.
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it. This get-rich-quick syndrome has kept the youths on their toes and
with uniform, notepad, batten or gun and teargas, but today all these
purchased through an internet auction site. The seller posts the auction as
reasons, family emergency etc. They often post the auction under one
directly to him via Western Union, Money Gram or bank to bank wire
internet access point using email harvesting software called web spiders
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each harvested spam-trapped addresses and typical product-based spam
3. Piracy: This is the act of illegally making access to people's soft copies
such as, books, games, movies and CDs or DVDs, etc and make copies of
(Longe & Longe, 2005). Example, the use of pirated Microsoft Windows
4. Hacking: This is the act of cracking firewalls or security codes with the
after consuming their contents, use same to defraud other people, who
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victim. The victims of these scams neither receives dividends nor their
initial capital. Example, the 2009 money doubling scam in Calabar, Ikom
or advance fee fraud. The major trick for this scam is calculated
the fraudsters have anticipated their thoughts for every step to be taken.
Victims who are charmed by these well added lies end up losing huge
fraudsters, who actually get same from close observation or outright theft,
gun point.
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internet or other social networks such as Facebook, skype, whatsapp,
to deceive people who may not have noticed or observed carefully that it
only resembles the true one. Such uncareful individuals are usually
11.Trojan attacks: This term comes from the word "Trojan horse" which
associated with VOIP allow callers to lie about their identity while
making call and present false names and numbers such that the person
can hide his identity that would make "private" to appear on the phone or
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14.Email bombing: This refers to the sending of a large number of emails to
provider) crashing.
cyberspace to infect computers, phones and other devices data all over the
desperate for wealth accumulation from the monies that will accrue from
entire memory of a device which could amount to huge financial lost. For
instance, a virus such as ''love bug'' when circulated was able to infect
loss of about $10million (Pati, 2003). In 1988, Robert Morris was behind
the release of the most dangerous internet virus in the world which almost
there are viruses such as Carribea and Comb Warrior (Gantz and
Rochester, 2005).
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17.Data dadding: This is a kind of attack which involves altering raw data
where a bank employee inserts a program such as 'logic bomb' into the
bank servers, that deducts small amount of money from the account of
gain login access. Fraudsters usually steal airtime from Internet Service
Providers or GSM service providers, like the case that affected MTN
through the passwords and other unique features, and editing same
whereby the original owner may not be able to gain access again.
messages claimed to come from a bank may tell users to dial a phone
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number regarding problems with their bank accounts (TACN, 2022).
Once the number (owned by the phisher, and provided by a voice over IP
Service) has been dialled, prompts would tell users to enter their account
pornography does not amount to crime, but they forget to know that most
from such content is a criminal, while those less than 18years are
delinquents.
through the use of internet websites, e-mails, short message services and
websites and most often ‘pop-ups’ on web pages have been design to
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technology. It is the act of faking an original money note or coin, or any
other document to make it look similar or almost the same as the legal or
original one. In Nigeria, there are a lot of forged certificates and naira
notes.
from the verbal physical world into the digital world. This is an act of
making mails, faxes, text messages, etc, slaying somebody's character and
27.Cyber theft: Any form of criminal activity that involves the use of
are outright theft such as, embezzlement with the use of ICT, stealing
currencies with the use of ICT. This is usually done by fraudsters with the
other parts of the world in order to avert the wrath of EFCC and ICPC.
29.Key logging: This is the act of using a particular software called key
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monitor the activities taking place on that computer, and capitalizing on
for such calls or text message (SMS) from the viewers amount to millions
services, instances of which have involved using cereal box toy whistles
to imitate telephone call signals, and more recently cloning mobile SIM
through a self-made cord, which when attached to a video player, has the
the youths, and it falls within the self-perception theory. The self-perception
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theory is an account of attitude change developed by psychologist Dary Bem. It
asserts that people develop their attitudes by observing their behaviour and
concluding what attitudes must have caused them. The theory is counterintuitive
accessing internal cognition and mood states. The person reasons their own
overt behaviours rationally in the same way they attempt to explain others’
behaviours.
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CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
The arrangement of conditions for the collection and analysis of data in a
findings depends to a large extent on the method used in collecting the data as
well as the system of analysis. This inevitably puts it that methodology is what
provides a detailed account of the methods used in the collection of data, why
these methods were chosen, where the data was obtained, and how they were
analysed. Thus, this chapter relates the methodology adopted for this research
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Research method is a systematic way of producing knowledge through
The research method used for this study was the survey method. This
Nigeria with eight Local Government Areas. The State presently has twenty-
five Local Government Area including Suleja L.G.A. It was established by the
Local Government reform of 1976 from the defunct Abuja native authority.
WGS84. It shares boundary with Gurara to the North-West, Tafa to the East in
Niger State and Gwagwalada, Zuba to the south, in Federal Capital Territory.
Suleja is about 20km North of Abuja the Federal Capital of Nigeria and about
100km North East of Minna the State Capital of Niger State. (Aminu, et al.,
2018).
It has ten (10) Wards within the Local Government Area namely; Bagama
‘A’, .Bagama ‘B’, Magajiya, Iku South I, Iku South II, Hashimi ‘A’, Hashimi
‘B’, Maje, Kurmin Sarki and Wambai and according to the 2006 provisional
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covering a land mass area of 118,910 km2 with 2,142 Density/ km2 (Aminu, et
al., 2018).
that can be generalized”. The target population in this research refers to the
was obtained as it relates to the area of the problem of this research i.e.,
collection of data method. The data from the sources were collected from the
In order to get the sample size for the study, the Taro Yamane formular
N
n= 2
1+ N ( e )
Where; n=sample size, e=entire population and N=population of the study
26
Using the appropriate formular above to get a benefitting sample size to
ensure that the population of the study is adequately presented. Based on this
27
n=
[ 216578
1+ 216578 ( 0.052 ) ] /2
n=¿]/2
n=
n=
[ 216578
1+ 541.44 ]
/2
399.27
n=
2
n=199.6
n=200
the selected respondents in Suleja. The researcher used the direct contact
approach i.e., meeting the respondents. This was to help minimize the
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The major techniques that will be used in data analysis shall be the chi-
as follows:
2 Σ(0−e )2
Χ = 2
e
Expected Frequency.
instruments were handed over to test experts for corrections. The validity of the
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CHAPTER FOUR
4.1 Introduction
This chapter is aimed at presenting and analysing the data collected during
the course of this research study. Data was obtained from the properly filled and
21 - 30 years 38 31.2
(31.2%, N = 38), those in the age bracket of 31-40 years were 24.2% (N = 29),
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while the least group were those at 41 years and above representing 9.2% (N =
11).
majority of the respondents 63.3% (N = 76) were males, while 36.7% (N = 44)
were females. This is likely associated with the fact that, in Nigeria males seems
7 Lack of standards & national central control 9 (2.3) 286 63 (16.4) 26 (6.8)
(74.5)
*The number of responses to each item are as indicated while percentages are
written in parenthesis.
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Table 4.2 shows the responses of respondents to causes of cybercrime with
four points Likert Scale format of either “Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree or
policing, corruption, greed of the victims, lack of standard & national central
control, Lack of national functional database and the porous nature of the
higher institutions.
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The rating of responses presented in table 3 shows the judgement of
state. It can be seen that 43.3 percent of the respondents (N = 52) ranked fake
message as first, 15.8 percent (N = 19) ranked Lotteries fraud as second, 12.5
well as Hacking as eighth, 2.6 percent (N = 10) ranked Phishing as the ninth,
the study area. This means that scam/fake messages (email and sms) is the
Note: The number of responses to each item are as indicted while percentages
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Table 4.4 shows the responses of respondents to likely victims of
cybercrime with four points Likert Scale of either “Strongly Agree, Agree,
respondents indicated that they either strongly agreed or agreed to all the
frequency.
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The table above revealed that the X2 calculated value of 12.020 is higher
than the X2 critical value of 3.840 at 0.05 level of significance. The null
Table 4.3: Chi- Square Statistical Test Result for the Hypothesis.
The degree of freedom (df) = (R-1) (C-1) = (2-1) (2-1) = (1) (1) =1°
From the table above, the calculated Chi-square (X 2cal) value is 77.11
while the tabulated Chi-square value (X2tab) is 3.84 at 1° of freedom and 0.05
Decision: since the calculated Chi-square (X2cal) value, 77.11, is greater than
(H1) and reject the null hypothesis. Hence, there is a significant indulgence and
From the data analysis above, it can be seen that there is significant
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The findings of this study identified various causes of cybercrimes peculiar
to in Suleja, Niger state as, porous nature of the internet, lack of national
opportunity fraud, and lotteries fraud. Amongst these types, scam/spam or fake
While pornography and cyber stalking are the least perpetrated cybercrimes.
The study also revealed that the likely victims of cybercrimes are the
naive/gullible, desperados, the inexperienced and the unlucky people. The result
shows that, the unlucky people are the most likely victims of cybercrimes
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CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 Summary
with corruption as the most causative factor. It also revealed the different types
of cybercrimes that exist in the area, and identified scam/fake messages as the
The study also identified porous nature of the internet, lack of national
central control and functional database, and lack e-policing as the causes of
cybercrimes in Suleja Niger State. This situation has made youths and other
cybercrimes becomes a good venture to make ends meet for scammers. Again,
the students are readily available as motivated offenders because they are poor,
5.2 Conclusion
are the most causative factors of cybercrimes in Suleja Niger State. This may
not be too surprising as these factors often make news headlines as social
37
tackling corruption, poverty and unemployment could be seen as lips service
Commission (ICPC) have never lived up to their billings. This is because their
operations metaphorically sees laws as cob-webs where the big flies passes
through and the small ones are caught. Top corrupt government officials and
public office holders embezzle and loot public funds without being brought to
book unless those in bad light of the powers that be. This is evident in their fleet
of cars, private jets and sky scrapers homes/businesses. Youths learning from
their suppose role models equally want to amassed wealth through any
fraudulent means such as cyber criminality, and of course, ICT has provided a
State alone, but the entire Nigerian State and the World over, concerted effort
5.3 Recommendations
society;
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1. Corruption should be curbed in order to limit the quest for massive wealth
ventures.
reorient and streamline the training needs and facilities of our law
outlaws on cyberspace.
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46
APPENDIX
QUESTIONNAIRE
Abuja
Department of Criminology
Dear Respondent,
I will be very grateful if you will kindly supply answers to the under
All information given by you will strictly be used for academic purposes
and will be treated confidentially. Options are given for each question and you
are to indicate your choice of answer with a tick [] mark, as is applied to your
response.
47
SECTION A (PERSONAL DATA)
1. Gender
a. Male [ ]
b. Female [ ]
2. Age:
a. 18-25 [ ]
b. 26-40 [ ]
c. 41-60 [ ]
S/N Statements SD D A SA
1 Poor cyber security
2 Poverty
3 economic hardship
4 corruption in the system
5 high unemployment rate
6 Greediness
7 lack of self-control
8 poor societal and moral values
S/ Statements SD D A SA
N
1 by improving the economic condition of the masses
2 by poverty reduction
3 equipping the law enforcement agencies for effectiveness
4 by reducing the level of corruption in the system
5 by creating more jobs
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6 value reorientation
7 ensuring cyber security
Thank you.
49