THE EFFECTS OF INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES ON CYBERCRIMES IN AWKA SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

1.1. Background of the study
Technology has integrated nations and the world has become a global village. The economy of most nations in the world is accessible through the aid of electronic via internet. However, information technology revolution associated with the internet has brought about two edge functions: – that is on one hand, it has produced so many maladies that threaten the order of the society and also produced cybercrime to the world. The internet online business services, which ordinarily are supposed to be blessing as they expose one to a lot of opportunities in various field of life are fast becoming sources of discomfort and worry due to the atrocities being perpetrated through it (Freidman, 1996).

Shinder (2002) defines cybercrime as any criminal offense committed using the internet or another computer network as a component of crime. Cybercrimes are offenses that are committed against individuals or group of individuals with a criminal motive of intentionally harming the reputation of the victim or cause physical or mental harm to the victim directly or indirectly using modern telecommunication networks such as internet and mobile phones such crimes may threaten the nation’s security and financial health (Akogwu, 2012). As the criminal justice system grapple with the challenge of bringing within its purview cyber misconducts hitherto uncovered by law, the scope and dimension of internet crime problem raises very critical security issues. Mansell (2005) observed that cyberspace raise issue that is fundamental to individuals and collective human safety and security.
“Internet crime is emerging as a major international criminological issue” (Roberts, 2008:1). The first conference entirely devoted to cyber criminology also referred to as virtual criminology was held in spoken valley, WA United states in October, 2006 (Jaishanker, 2007). Cybercrime represents a new phenomenon in criminal activity conduct (Brenner, 2001). The globalization of criminal conduct was stimulated by the globalization of the information and communication technology which created borderless free market where cybercrime has international repercussion (Buckner & Giuham, 2000).

Society is increasingly relying on new information technology and the internet to conduct business, manage industrial activities and engage in personal communication among other numerous benefits while these technologies allow for enormous gain in efficiency, productivity and communication; they also create a vulnerability to those who wish to take advantage of new situations. The exponential growth of the internet and its global acceptance is generating increasing security threats.
The cyber space creates unlimited opportunities for commercial, social and educational activities as well as a haven for societal miscreants to perpetrate their insidious act (http://www.akamaiuniversity.US/PJST.Htm,2010). Cybercrime is increasingly astronomically each day as the internet continues to permeate every nooks and no one can predict the next dimension. The cyberspace usually requires herculean task to trace. It attracts attention globally because the impacts are ubiquitous just as its negative effect is devastating to the economy and leads to investment phobia. Nigeria just like other Sub-Sahara Africa countries is the last to embrace Information Communication Technology (ICT) such as the internet and mobile technologies.

A decade ago, only very limited number of countries had local internet access. Today, the situation is quite different, internet penetration is on increase in Nigeria with most of the citizens who cannot afford the private internet facilities depending on public and commercial internet access points such as cyber cafes, for rudimentary internet access cyber cafes in turn exploit this opportunity by charging exorbitant fees for their services (Agharise, 2006).
Despite this monumental growth in ICT adoption, fundamental problem of erratic power supply also rear its ugly head. The inadequate telecommunication infrastructure has also continued to hinder the nation from uninterrupted access to innovative information technology application such as e-government, e-commerce, e-banking etc. The current level of ICT penetration has brought renewed interest in the investment and innovative use of information and communication for modern development. This is evident in the proliferation of the internet access points the use of cell phones iPod iPad, Automated Teller Machine (ATM) credit cards etc. According to internet world status, Nigeria as at November 2007, accounts for the highest number of internet users in Africa. By 2009 available statistics showed that Egypt is on the lead followed by Nigeria. However, today Nigeria has taken the first position on the table.

The proliferation of Information Communication Technology (ICT) has brought with it tremendous changes in socio-economic growth and development in many facets of Nigeria economy, banking, insurance stock market production, services etc. Paradoxically, ICT has also evolved to become a sophisticated tool in the hands of criminals for perpetrating different forms of cybercrimes unintended consequences such as e-mail scam, identity theft, child pornography, organized crime and solicitation for prostitution, fake lotteries and scam text messages as well as piracy are few of the vices that have become recurring indices on the internet.
A wave of fraudulent mails and other sharp practices referred to as 419 scamming in Nigeria parlance pervade the entire web space. This ugly trend acts as worm against economic development in Nigeria and has compounded the challenges facing Nigeria in the fight against corruption and other vices. The ugly trend has the potential to serve as a breeding ground for cyber terrorism where the religious extremists and militants within Nigeria can recruit, train and plan terrorist attack with just laptops and internet access.

There is no doubt from the foregoing that cyberspace is an image nightmare for Nigeria not minding the opportunity presented by internet. Some Nigerian youth have decided to turn their back on those opportunities and compelled to have rather chosen the way of men of the underworld and use the internet for criminal ends. This indeed is never the intention of the inventors of this magic tool. (http://www.salon.com.2010).
There is no gain saying that the invention of the internet and the subsequent increase in communication and interaction among individuals and groups in different societies of the world and the enhanced integration of global cultures have added new and unprecedentedly dimensions of crime in the society. Based on this, this study is determine to investigate the effects of information communication technologies on cybercrime with special interest in Awka south local Government Area, Anambra state which is the area of the study of this research.