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FG To Review Nigeria’s National Cyber-Security Strategy - ONSA

Tech Regulations & Govt	5982 VIEWS
Tech Regulations & Govt
5982 VIEWS

Friday, April 05, 2019 11.40AM / Nifemi Taiyese for Proshare WebTV / Header Image Credit: Guardian

The Federal Government of Nigeria plans to review the country’s Cyber-Security strategy in 2019, to promote efficiency and alignment with global best practices.

Dr Bala Fakandu Deputy Director of the Office of the National Security Adviser disclosed this at the maiden Phillips Consulting CIO breakfast meeting in Lagos.

Speaking on the topic “Cyber-Security” Fakandu said that the government intends to establish a robust framework for curbing the use of cyber space for propagating messages such as hate speech and fake news .

He also informed stakeholders that the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) will consolidate on critical information infrastructure protection for Nigeria.

In the area of training, Fakandu said there are plans within the year to organize capacity building programs for ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

On concerns around data protection which prompted Europe to develop the “General Data Protection Regulation”, GDPR Fakandu highlighted the ongoing developments around legislation in Nigeria on Data protection.

According to him “The senate committee on ICT and cyber -crime has done a lot to make sure we get data protection up and running. In 2018 with the help of the European Council we did a draft of the data protection bill in Calabar. The Council of Europe were there to supervise to ensure that the right thing was being done”.

Speaking further on the Data Protection bill in Nigeria the ONSA official said “The data protection bill is a component, it was developed based on convention 108 of European Council and that is the convention which the GDPI was based on as well.

The data protection bill which is presently in the Senate, and yet to be passed is a job well done by lawyers. As some of the laws from convention 108 is not peculiar to Nigeria and had to be removed”.

As it concerns international cooperation like the Commonwealth Cyber-declaration, Fakandu in his presentation said the ONSA coordinated the efforts for the national cyber security capacity review; the first of its kind which is to look at where Nigeria stands in cyber security using the maturity model of Oxford.

Other areas that the ONSA Deputy Director discussed in his presentation include;