The Federal Government has commenced moves to overhaul Nigeria’s cybercrime legislation to address emerging threats posed by artificial intelligence (AI), including sophisticated online fraud, digital surveillance, cyberattacks and threats to critical national infrastructure.
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The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Justice had developed a draft executive bill aimed at strengthening the country’s legal framework for investigating and prosecuting cybercrime.
Fagbemi made this known in a message delivered on his behalf by the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation, Rotimi Oyedepo, at the second International Cybersecurity Conference held in Abuja on Tuesday.
“The Federal Ministry of Justice has advanced work on a draft executive bill to strengthen our legal framework,” he said.
The conference, organised by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), was themed “Cyber Resilience in the Age of AI: Defending Minds, Networks and Nations.”
Fagbemi explained that the proposed legislation would address emerging technological developments, improve the preservation and exchange of electronic evidence, and strengthen cooperation among law enforcement agencies in combating cybercrime.
According to him, the initiative builds on Nigeria’s accession to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, its engagement with the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime, and consultations on the existing Cybercrimes Act.
The minister observed that cybercrime had evolved beyond conventional internet fraud to include cryptocurrency-related offences, sextortion, child exploitation and AI-assisted deception.
“Our objective is clear: laws that respond to emerging technologies, facilitate the preservation and exchange of electronic evidence, support effective investigation and prosecution, and uphold human rights and the rule of law,” he stated.
Fagbemi, however, cautioned that efforts to strengthen cybersecurity enforcement must not undermine fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed under the law.
“Security must protect liberty, not become an excuse to undermine it,” he added.
Also speaking, the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, disclosed that the agency was collaborating with the Office of the National Security Adviser and the National Assembly on a review of the Cybercrimes Act.
“We’ve been working with the Office of the National Security Adviser, the National Assembly to review the Cybercrime Act and repeal it to get more legislative power to do more with what we have,” he said.
Abdullahi explained that the government was also considering the development of a national cybersecurity architecture that would prescribe minimum protection standards for organisations.
He warned that cybercriminals were increasingly exploiting human vulnerabilities through AI-generated voices, videos and images rather than relying solely on direct attacks against computer systems.
According to him, the growing sophistication of AI-powered deception requires stronger legal safeguards, improved cybersecurity awareness and coordinated responses from government agencies and private organisations.
In his keynote address, the Executive Vice-Chairman of the NCC, Aminu Maida, warned that AI-powered cyberattacks could disrupt telecommunications networks, financial institutions and government operations.
Maida, who was represented by the commission’s Executive Commissioner for Technical Services, Sunday Oshadami, said cybercriminals were deploying automated attacks, deepfakes and increasingly sophisticated malware to compromise digital systems.
“We are no longer defending against human hackers operating at human speed; we are confronting machine learning systems operating at microsecond computational speed,” he stated.
He cited cyberattacks on supermarket refrigeration systems in France and spyware incidents targeting at least 45 devices belonging to journalists and media personnel in the Middle East as examples of evolving cybersecurity threats.
Maida disclosed that the NCC had established a Computer Security Incident Response Team and introduced a cyber resilience framework prescribing security standards for licensed telecommunications operators.
The proposed legislative reforms are expected to strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to investigate emerging forms of cybercrime, secure digital infrastructure and facilitate cooperation among relevant institutions while safeguarding fundamental human rights.
However, the draft executive bill has not yet been presented as an enacted law, and its final provisions will be subject to the legislative process.
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