EFCC, NiRA Sign MoU on Cybersecurity Training

Emma Okonji

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA), the registry for .ng Internet Domain Names, responsible for maintaining the database of names registered in the .ng country code Top Level Domain.

The MoU would enable NiRA to provide cyber security trainings for the personnel of the EFCC and other national security organisations.

The Executive Chairman of EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, while speaking during the MoU signing, which held at the office of the EFCC in Abuja recently, reiterated the resolve of the commission to build the capacity of the personnel to effectively combat the emerging trends in cybersecurity.

According to Bawa, the MoU would further boost the understanding of his personnel on the modern trends in cyberspace and assist the commission’s investigations.

“We are very proud to collaborate with NiRA because we realise that part of our mandate is collaboration. We need relevant stakeholders whether in government or private sector to achieve our mandate,” Bawa said.

The EFCC boss, while expressing delight over the collaboration, said the EFCC had already established a well-equipped academy to sustain the training.

“I find this MoU very appealing. I accept your collaboration and we are ready to start as soon as possible. We have a well-equipped academy to carry out this training and I advise that the training is not only onsite but also online so that many people can join, and even other agencies can benefit from this using the same platform,” Bawa added.

President of NiRA, Muhammed Rudman, who led the NiRA’s delegation, said the purpose of the MoU was to strengthen collaboration between the association and the EFCC.

According to him, there was a huge gap between NiRA and law enforcement agencies, which needs to be bridged.

“We have law enforcement agencies locking up to Registrars when there are cybersecurity issues relating to website crimes perpetrated by end users. So, to protect our Registrars from having challenges with law enforcement agencies, we identify EFCC as the right partner to provide capacity building to address these gaps in terms of cybersecurity awareness and general knowledge of Information and Communications Technology (ICT),” Rudman said.

According to him, when the MoU would be fully implemented, it would benefit not only the EFCC but other agencies as well.

“We want to kick start this project as soon as possible to give high level capacity building on the internet and how it works, to address the needs of law enforcement agencies, using EFCC as an umbrella body to bridge the cybersecurity gap,” Rudman further said.

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