The Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NIRA), the registry for .ng Internet Domain Names, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on training.
The MoU will have NiRA, which is responsible for maintaining the database of names registered in the .ng country code Top Level Domain, to provide cyber security trainings for the personnel of the EFCC and other national security organisations.
Speaking during the MoU signing ceremony between the EFCC and NIRA, led by its President, Muhammed Rudman, at the EFCC Head Office, in Abuja, the Executive Chairman of the EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, reiterated the resolve of the Commission to build the capacity of the personnel to effectively handle emerging trends in cyber security.
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 you because we realize that part of our mandate is collaboration. We need relevant stakeholders whether in government or private sector to achieve our mandate”.
The EFCC boss, while expressing delight over the collaboration, said that the EFCC has a well-equipped Academy to sustain the training.
He added: “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 on-site but also online so that many people can join, and even other agencies can benefit from this using our platform.”
Earlier, NIRA President, Muhammed Rudman, while providing some insight into the goals of NiRA, stated that the purpose of the MoU was to strengthen collaboration between the internet Association and the EFCC.
According to him, there is a huge gap between NIRA and law enforcement agencies, which needs to be bridged.
“We have law enforcement agencies locking up Registrars when there are cyber security issues involving websites, based on the crimes perpetrated by end users. So, to protect our Registrars from having challenges with law enforcement, we identify EFCC as the right partner to provide capacity building to address these gaps in terms of cybersecurity awareness and general knowledge of ICT”, Rudman explained.
He added that when the MoU was fully implemented it would benefit not only the EFCC but other agencies as well.
“To be honest with you, 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”, he further said.
