Salus Journal (Oct 2022)
Cybercrime policing in the Lagos State Command of the Nigeria Police Force
Abstract
The criminality of cybercriminals operating in Nigeria has significantly expanded from the initially dominant cyber fraud to include other categories of cybercrime. Although the Nigerian Government has tried to contain the problem, there is a shortage of scholarly information on the specific role of the Nigeria Police Force in fighting this form of crime. Given this, the central objective of this study was to investigate cybercrime policing in the Lagos State Command of the Nigeria Police Force. It was exploratory and cross-sectional in design. . Data were sourced from 27 purposively selected police personnel using in-depth and key-informant interviews. The results showed that the Lagos State Police Command routinely handled different cases of cybercrime. However, exposure to professional training in cybercrime policing skills was restricted to certain categories of officers. Although different internal and external strategies were being used by the Police Command to combat cybercrime, the overall effectiveness of its personnel was being hampered by multiple operational challenges.
