By Augustine Omilo
Introduced in 1969 by the United States Military while in search of alternative means of communicating with fighting soldiers at the war front, the internet has since turned the entire world into a global village. This and its byproducts such as email, ecommerce, elearning, ebanking, ecommunications through the social media channels has metamorphosed into what is today known as Information and Communications Technology, ICT.
Nigeria, with her population advantage remains one of the countries at the heart of technology innovators when it comes to investments in newly discovered or developed areas of efficient delivery of goods or services.
When computers were introduced in the country in the late 1970s and 80s, it was common to find organized workers’ unions protesting against the idea with grievous actions such as strikes in organized work environments. The fear then was that faster means of doing business with automated machines would lead to loss of jobs. But, the more, the resistance, the greater, the zeal employed by advanced nations in spreading the innovation. But time has since proved that rather than leading to loss of jobs, computers, especially with the arrival of the internet have been creating greater avenues for employment and money-making commercial creativities.
In Nigeria, it has also brought pains and frustrations to its users. Esther Augustine is a student of the Delta State University, DELSU, Abraka. She admitted that the internet is very helpful to students in their quest for study materials in form of books and other publications that offer helpful hints in various fields of study.
She is fascinated by the opportunity to access and download e_books at cheaper rates than outright purchase of the hardcopies from book stores. She also feels excited at the speed with which examination results such as Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) is often released.
She recalls how her father used to tell stories of how he traveled from Agbor to Lagos in the early 1980s just to check his JAMB result after the release was announced in the news. “According to my father, if you did not physically go to JAMB office in Ikoyi-Lagos to check for your result, you were left with the option of getting it delivered to you through the postal services that sometimes took months to conclude’’, she stated.
But then, she regrets that the pains that intending undergraduates go through in centres for their computer-based tests, CBT are enough to frustrate poor children out of seeking admission into Nigerian universities. She adds that, after the pains at entrance examination halls, one still faces the possibility of not getting his or her actual scores due to technical glitches that have always featured in the examinations, especially since question papers are not released to students for review and assessments before results are released. What this means, according to her, is that the hope of students passing the examination still hinges on the examining body’s efficiency.
This is unlike what obtained in the time past when students could ‘mark’ their objective answers after leaving examination halls.
Another area of lamentation is the school fees payment system. According to her, the university authorities were kind enough to allow instalmental payments. In her words; “unfortunately, if payment is not completed before the final closure of the payment portal, even if a defaulting student comes to the examination hall with the balance, he or she will not be allowed to write the examinations and still, the student cannot pay the fees within the period of the examinations”. According to her, her friend lost an academic year because of this, yet she has not been able to get refund from the school since she had to pay another fees for the same class.
Banking Experiences: In the banking industry.
It has been a mixture of gains, pains and frustrations on the part of both customers and the banks. In 2024 alone, two banks in the country suffered combined losses, amounting to over two billion naira (N2,000,000,000.00). One of the banks – Moniepoint is a mobile micro finance type commonly referred to as being in Fintech subsector of the industry.
In May, 2024, a 43-year-old man, Sunday Ozimede, who allegedly hacked Moniepoint Microfinance Bank’s Vault and stole the sum of N1,190, 728, 076 billion, from the bank was arraigned by the police in January, 2025 before the Federal High Court in Lagos State. The suspect was alleged to have committed offences bordering on three counts charges of conspiracy, hacking and obtaining by false pretense, leading to the illegal withdrawal of the humongous amount from Moniepoint Micro Finance Bank Limited.
The Nigeria Police Special Fraud Unit’s prosecutor in the matter told the court that Ozimede fraudulently diverted the money from various Moniepont Microfinance Bank’s customers’ deposited funds through numerous transactions to other banks, using illegitimate means that included planting a bug into the bank’s data system, thereby causing financial losses to Moniepoint.
The second one, a Deposit Money Bank (DMB), Sterling Bank Plc suffered similar fate in November, 2024 when it lost N1.2bn to Five “Hackers”. The police alleged that the cyber criminals connived with the bank’s internal staff and external parties to compromise the bank’s sensitive data and security system, using international mobile equipment identity 14984244, IP address 84252.113.3, and 88 transactions.
Narrating the issue further, the Police Special Fraud Unit (PSFU), Ikoyi, Lagos said three men and two women compromised Sterling Bank Plc’s banking platform and Bance Application and stole N1, 257, 536, 572.50 billion.
These are a few of the many cases of fraud perpetrated against Nigerian banks. The attacks are gradually shifting from AK-47 –driven armed robbery ones to the new-found hi-tech methods. But, as the banks battle to cushion the effects of being attacked by digital thieves, many members of the banking public are also having their own fair share of the pains and frustrations arising from tech-based banking services.
Mr. Ezekiel Okwudili, an Onitsha-based businessman recently vowed never to use any other means of cash transfers outside the banking halls except with the use of his bank’s banking Application. He said his decision was arrived at, after many sad ordeals in the hands of commercial Point of Sales (POS) device operators.
The businessman said, he had on many occasions withdrawn money from this set of people, only to be told that transactions were not successful, and to find out later that his account had been debited with the amounts he intended to withdraw. He added that on such occasions, the POS service provider would advise him to complain to his bank. And each time he did, the bank also advised that he be patient and wait for seven working days for the transactions to be normalized. “This is often done without the POS people or the banks compensating you for time and money lost in the process”, he adds.
In continuation of his story, Ezekiel said; “apart from my personal experience, I was in one of the banking halls some time ago when a lady walking alongside a man stormed the bank in a manner that suggested that there was a serious issue at hand needing the urgent attention of the bank officials. Behold, the lady in question was a POS operator who had just concluded a transaction with the man.
The man paid money to her and she credited the man’s account accordingly with transaction receipt as a proof but the man claimed he never received a credit alert. The matter was only settled when the bank manager advised the man to go home and give the bank seven working days to effect the necessary corrections”.
Another disturbing trend according to Mr. Okwudili stems from occurrences of the Banks’ Automated Teller Machines (ATM) ‘ceasing’ customers’ debit cards. According to him, when such cases are reported to the banks, they rather advise that the card owner report such issue to his or her bank and this often result into the person being finally compelled to apply for another card at his or her expense.
A man who simply introduced himself as Sampson was recently seen in a banking hall in Asaba wailing profusely. According to him, he received a call from an unknown caller who introduced himself as customer service personnel of his (Sampson’s) bank. The strange voice requested that Sampson should call out the serial number on his ATM card in order to enable the periodic update of the account information of the owner.
He complied but later got the rudest of his life. In less than ten minutes, he received a debit alert indicating that a whopping sum of two million naira (N2m) has been moved from his account. While in shock over this, the man rushed to the bank to effect the blockade of his account from further withdrawals. Unfortunately, while he was laying his complaints at the front desk, another debit alert of N5m came in, thus leaving his account with a near-zero balance. His complain was already late. The bank promised to ‘do something’ about it. Whether or not the ‘something’ has been done about the matter remains unknown since Sampson has not been seen for further findings.
Software Expert’s Reaction
Reacting to the numerous acts of technology-related banking malpractices, a Lagos-based computer Software developer and Lead Consultant at Pilotec Limited, Mr. Makinde Jones opines that all the shortcomings associated with digital age notwithstanding, it still holds the ace as far as developing and running businesses globally are concerned, insisting that anyone or organisation refusing to follow suit only does that at their own disadvantage.
Jones adds that banks can minimize the incidences of cyber fraud by strengthening the security layers within their business Applications. He suggests that banks should, as matters of priority ensure that online transactions are properly scrutinized by their systems before ‘approvals’ are granted.
According to him; “for example, if a man initiates a withdrawal transaction on-line, the system should be able to send a ‘query’ to the account holder’s documented telephone line and expect a response of ‘y ‘ or ‘n’ before going ahead to conclude the transaction. And any ignored response or ‘n’ should be interpreted by the system as ‘not approved’.
Makinde Jones adds that, if well-structured software is in place in any business environment, it will help to checkmate fraudsters and even when they strike; it becomes less strenuous for security operatives to apprehend them.
He recalled an incident reported by BBC in 2016 wherein the US police arrested and prosecuted some cyber criminals, including a Russian, Aleksandr Andreevich Panin who connived with themselves in 2013 and created a Malware called SpyEye virus package that enabled them to steal about $100m (£70m) from a bank vault and were given long jail sentences.
He concludes that bank customers must always reach out to their banks’ customer care unit dedicated telephone lines before responding to calls by unknown persons making inquiries or suggestions about their account details.
The Game Changer:
Meanwhile, with the arrival of Artificial Intelligence, AI as a technology model offering advanced methods of computers acting like proper human beings, the world seem programmed for higher levels of challenges in checkmating frauds.
It is only hoped that just as anti-virus software were developed by experts to combat human-created computer viruses, those given to technology innovations, including Nigerians must put on their thinking caps with a view to avoiding the creation of greater problems for mankind than the computer programs were actually intended to solve.
Nigeria, in particular cannot afford a situation where she succeeds in eliminating ‘tally numbers’ and queues in banking halls with technology, only to have them replaced with computer-based coded instructions that cannot be physically seen and understood by less scientific ordinary humans.
Nigerian banks must find solutions to error messages such as; “Your request is taking longer than usual. Please try again if you have not received a transaction success notification within 5 minutes …” which sometimes lead customers’ into multiple debit.
