Emeka Maduewesi
Today I will meet Mallam Nuhu Ribadu for the first time at a reception in his honor in Richmond, California. I wrote this article in in September 2006 and it was published by THISDAY NEWSPAPERS both in both print and online. Today, I republish the exact same article in his honor. The issues raised in 2006 are as relevant today as they were then. Please read if your time permits.:
Nigerians have the reputation of being instinctively fraudulent. Yes, not having been caught, charged, tried and pronounced guilty excludes most of us from serving our comeuppance. Again, death has a way of hastening trial and conviction when the living lack the will to accuse and investigate and the courts of competent jurisdiction renege and abdicate their constitutional responsibility. If Abacha had not died, his billions of dollars starched away in foreign banks would still be his. Sani Abacha happens to be the only dead Nigerian head of state. Does it mean that all the rest are corruption-free? What of the dead INEC Accountant who had over one billion naira in his account? The Igbo says that searching for the kitchen knife is the surest way to disclose what the family had for dinner. If his wives had kept quiet, we would not have known. If he had one billion in his accounts, how much do INEC's past and present Chairmen have?
Nigeria has the freest, most vibrant press on earth that I know of, and I have lived in the United States, "the land of the free and brave" since 1998. In character with everything Nigerian, we also have, on the one hand, the boldest white-collar criminals who plunder our public treasury with impunity, and on the other, daylight robbers who are not afraid to lay siege on our busiest international airport! A friend of mine once told me that a serving civil servant - one of those who pioneered the move to Abuja - has more than 30 buildings in the city. She told me this story, not as one peeved by corruption, but in admiration of the thief's achievement! In Nigeria, the bolder the press, the more daring the thieves!
Corruption, citizen passivity (apathy) and comatose law enforcement and justice delivery system are the main problems with Nigeria. The coming into effect of the EFCC Act 2003 changed the face and pace of law enforcement. Armed with the freshly minted amendments, the czar of the War against Corruption and my hero any day, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, swung into action, arresting every one directly or remotely connected with Cybercafés. Because Nigeria is economically inefficient and politically anarchic, even good intentions are often times badly executed.
At a recent meeting with stakeholders in the internet service industry, Mallam Ribadu suggested that the Cybercafé operators should run their businesses as video clubs, with procedures for registration and identification of patrons. While I commend Mallam Ribadu's zeal in fighting corruption and internet crimes, this suggestions is grossly outdated and a chill on mobility of labor. If I register with ABC Internet Café in Lagos, on a visit to Abuja, will I be permitted by XYZ Cybercafé to use their facility? Would the Abuja café not be apprehensive that I may be a criminal who may put their business at risk? I have great respect for Mallam Ribadu and I know he can do better, hence this article.
My proposal is for an Act of the National Assembly for a centralized and compulsory registration of cybercafé users and issuing them with identification cards. In the alternative, the EFCC or the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) may use their enabling powers to issue regulations for that purpose if an Act of the National Assembly will take snail speed to arrive. The envisaged Cybercafé User's Card is a generic card that permits the holder to use any Cybercafé in Nigeria on presentation of the Card. My duty is to draft the propose Bill or regulation, but first, some comments.
Firstly, it is the responsibility of the government of a sovereign nation to protect her territorial integrity. Cyberspace, like airspace, is part of a notion's territory integrity. Both advanced and developing countries determine what passes through their cyberspace. This cyberspace equivalent of import and export is done through the use of a system on their internet national hub whose algorithm is programmed to respond to some keywords. The United States, China and even Vietnam are doing this as some kind of monitoring or censure.
Secondly, privacy concerns may suggest that we leave our cyberspace unmonitored. This is like leaving your airspace, shores and boundaries unmonitored. The war between privacy and security is stiffer in cyberspace than under brick and mortar. The need to protect our individual privacy must be balance against the need to secure our national cyberspace, a dichotomy that can be resolved with clearly defined policies and supporting technology.
Thirdly, on the algorithm for keyword monitoring system, our legal requirements for reporting certain transactions to appropriate authorities can be successfully integrated into a system to monitor emails sent from or received in Nigeria. For example, any email from Nigeria that has keywords like President, Governor, Head of State, NNPC, NPA, Petroleum, Minister, etc., and any sum of money above 5,000 Dollars, $, should trigger the system. After all, no Nigerian has the right to export or import $5000 without reporting it to the appropriate office.
Finally, technology is cheap and readily available. Nigeria is so richly endowed but we lack the political will to move forward. Our legendary kleptomaniac tendencies I alluded to earlier manifest everyday as public officers are exposed by either the EFCC or the Budget Monitoring Committee. The money recovered from Tafa Balogun should be enough to set up this system.
Emeka Maduewesi is a dual-qualified (Nigeria and California) international lawyer with cross-border intellectual property and technology transactions, licensing, regulatory, complex commercial litigation and antitrust experience. He has a Masters Degree in Intellectual Property and Technology Law from the University of San Francisco School of Law, San Francisco, California. He is the Publisher of http://www.nigerianlawregistry.com/ and http://www.nlid.info/
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