By Nse Anthony-Uko
ABUJA, (Sundiata Post) — The United States government has disclosed its readiness to partner the Nigerian government in its quest to secure its cyberspace against cyber trolls, criminals.
This was one of the crux of the discussion when a team of students and administrators of the American Air War College paid a courtesy call on Nigeria’s telecom regulatory body, the Nigeran Communications Commission (NCC), Abuja.
In his remarks, the Dr Stephen Burgess of the Department of International Security Studies, said the meeting between the senior US officials and those of Nigeria is meant to improve the Nigeria/US relations and foster mutual understanding, adding that the meeting was to intimate Nigeria about the US cutting edge technologies that Nigeria can benefit from, and how young Nigerian entrepreneurs can develop their own businesses to become the next Google inventors of this generation.
‘’There is a broad curriculum that is developed in the US Air War College on cyber security, and what I think Nigeria can benefit from that is to get young people who are interested in cyber security to take courses in order to develop the capacity of Nigeria to respond to cyber-crime and other kind of cyber insecurity,’’ he said.
Fielding questions from journalists, Col. Moye Vanessa from the college said that it was a normal routine for students of the US war college to visit different countries and get first hand information on how their telecom regulators carry out their duties and how they handle cyber security issues.
Earlier, the Executive Vice Chairman of the commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta, said the delegation’s visit to the commission is important because Information Communication Technology (ICT) is key to national security, and that there are also a lot of American companies and interest in Nigeria.
Danbatta who was represented by the Director of Public Affairs, Tony Ojobo, said the commission has also been very active in shaping the current wave of economic and financial development in the country.
He said: “Being an industry that plays a key role in economic development and financial services, they needed to come to NCC to ask some of these questions bordering on how ICT is impacting on e-commerce, and that is an area where a lot is happening in Nigeria
‘’Also, in terms of financial services, merchandising, job creation and all kind of innovation that is coming out. We have online retail outlets like Yudala, Konga and Jumia, and in the financial sector where we are already talking about the use of mobile money and mobile banking. So it is an important call.”