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Cyber Threats and Nigeria’s National Security: Assessing the Role of
Regional Cooperation in West Africa
Adesuyi Ololade Oluwatosin
University of Ibadan, Nigeria
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.910000645
Received: 26 October 2025; Accepted: 04 November 2025; Published: 20 November 2025
This study evaluates the intersection of cyber threats, national security, and regional collaboration in West
Africa, and specifically how the cybersecurity architecture in Nigeria is changing. It discusses the way the
growing digitization of the Nigerian economy and government has made the country more susceptible to
cybercrime, disinformation, and espionage, as these problems are now considered critical concerns related to
national security. The paper is based on the theory of securitization and regional security complex framework
to evaluate the policy reactions of Nigeria, institutionalization and the importance of regional collaboration
within the framework of ECOWAS and Malabo Convention of the African Union. Based on content analysis of
secondary data and policy documents, the study shows the presence of institutional weaknesses, lack of
technical capacity, and legal harmonization as the key obstacles to effective cyber governance. Sustainable
cyber resilience requires national coordination, capacity building and enhanced regional collaboration. Study
findings highlight the fact that the leadership of ECOWAS in Nigeria should transition to policy supremacy to
facilitate cooperation so as to establish a collective cyber defense and digital stability in West Africa.
Keywords: Cybersecurity, National Security, Regional Cooperation, West Africa
INTRODUCTION
Over the past few years, cyber threat in national security has turned out to be a two-sided sword of such a state
like Nigeria (Clarke & Knake, 2010; Sule et al, 2021). The more the services, infrastructure and governance
functions shift to the cyber domain, the more the country is exposed to cyber threats. What used to be solely
presented as an information-technology issue is gradually being perceived as a national security issue. In the
case of Nigeria, the development of cybercrime, cyber-espionage and digital disinformation are not only
technical inconveniences but are reverberations in economic, political and strategic aspects. Based on the
paradigm of cyber power, Nye (2010) underlines that power distribution in cyberspace complicates the state
power and makes it more vulnerable. Simultaneously, as the digital infrastructure and state operations merge in
Nigeria, cyber disruptions can be felt much further than the ICT departments into the very national security
sectors.
The initial significant vulnerability has been the massive rise in cybercrime, cyber-espionage and digital
disinformation. Nye (2010) supports this argument by saying that cyberspace presents unprecedented strength
to non-state actors across all regions of the globe by lowering power disparities. On the same note, Clarke and
Knake (2010) cautions that the use of cyber-weapons, espionage and state sponsored hacking has created a thin
line between crime, war and national security. Empirical studies in the situation with Nigeria point at how
financial crime, identity theft, malware attacks and large-scale breaches of data are currently being directed not
at individual victims but at the whole system of finance, governance, and public services (Sule et al., 2021).
Online disinformation campaigns also increase threats to political stability, trust and legitimacy of governance.
The phenomena bring the issue of cyber threats out of the technological sphere into the national security
strategy.
Strategic vulnerability is further enhanced by the rapid digitalisation of national infrastructure and governance
system. The economy of Nigeria has been more dependent on the digital platform: banking and financial
services, energy grids, telecommunications networks and public-sector responses are becoming more and more
dependent on interconnected systems and streams of data. Cybercrime and national security studies in Nigeria
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highlight that the institutional capacity is weak, there is no forensic skill and disjointed laws undermine the
response to cyber-attacks (Yusuf, 2014; Okoru & Oluku, 2023). To illustrate, studies on cyber-risk
coordination in Nigeria have shown that, although the country has formally instituted a national Computer
Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Sectoral Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs), the
coordination between agencies is still poor (Ikuero, 2022). Moreover, the wider scholarly body on the topic of
development and cybercrime demonstrates that cybercrime decreases investor confidence, harms national
image, and cripples sustainable development (Atalor and Fakunle, 2023). Collectively, these results indicate
that the digital transformation in Nigeria should be accompanied by equally important resilience efforts in case
the cyber threats are to be addressed as the issues of national-security.
The policy significance of cyber threats to the internal and regional stability of Nigeria cannot be
overestimated. At the internal level, an effective cyber-attack on financial infrastructure or government
services may undermine the level of trust, create governance crises and deteriorate state capacity. Nigeria being
a key player in the West African region and a pillar to regional security, its cyber vulnerability has spill over
effects to neighbouring states and the overall regional security complex. Those scholars who have used the
securitisation theory have pointed out that by presenting a phenomenon as a security concern, states are able to
mobilise resources, legitimise extraordinary actions and coordinate institutional responses (Buzan, Waever and
de Wilde, 1998). The change in perception of cyber-threats as an ICT problem to a national security problem is
necessary in the Nigerian context in mobilising the correct policy and institutional frameworks (Tella, 2022).
In the meantime, studies about the place played by Nigeria in fighting against transnational digital threats
emphasize the value of legal frameworks and regional collaboration in West Africa (Jude, 2024). With this kind
of framework, policymakers in Nigeria and the region would be in a better position to place cyber threat in
broader frameworks of stability, state sovereignty and collective governance.
Conceptual and Theoretical Framework
The fast-changing digital space has significantly broadened the boundaries of security cognition, which has led
to the necessity to frame how the problem of cybersecurity, national security, regional security complex, and
digital sovereignty converge within regional frames of governance and technological sovereignty. The core of
this exploration is made of three related ideas, namely, cybersecurity as the defense of information systems,
networks and data against malicious digital intrusions; national security as a broader construct to encompass
the political autonomy and territorial integrity of a state and the critical infrastructure; and regional security
complex as the idea that security relations occur in the most intense form at the regional level with inter-
dependencies clustering around the states. Digital sovereignty is thus the desire of states and regional blocs to
dominate their digital environments, data streams, and infrastructure and regimes. The combination of these
ideas allows a more in-depth discussion of how states and regional entities of the West African location pursue
attempts to cope with cyber-threats, secure national interests and regional coordination.
The theory of securitization as represented by Barry Buzan, Ole Waever and Jaap de Wilde (1998) provides a
rich platform on which cyber operations can be interpreted as being advanced to the level of technical or policy
problems to that of security imperative that require extraordinary solutions. Securitization theory underlines
that security is not the objective state of affairs but a socio-constructed activity where an issue is put in terms
of a speech act as an existential threat to a specified referent object usually the state, society or identity (Buzan
et al., 1998; Waefer, 1995). Within the cyberspace, researchers have demonstrated that states are growing to
describe cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure, data network or digital sovereignty as similar to conventional
threats of war or espionage, warranting increased efforts, extraordinary expenditure or constraining regulatory
frameworks. This can be applied to a West African or African regional context and it is in this context that
governments are connected to cybersecurity in terms of it being a survival of the nation, social cohesion and
security of the digital economy, thus justifying a stronger state action (Gaidaev, 2020). In this framing, in
reference to the regional security complex concept, the argument is presented that the perception of threat and
response to it is not limited within the borders of the individual state: the security of one state is closely
interwoven with its neighbours through shared cyberspace realities, data-flows, cross-border incidents and
infrastructural dependencies (Buzan et al., 1998).
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In opposition to the theory of securitization, a collective security approach offers a normative and institutional
means of how regional actors seek to structure collective actions to cyber-threats and digital governance issues.
In collective security, states assume the responsibility of collaborating to maintain peace and security to all
members of the group by usually restricting the sovereign action of the state to intervene when a state is
threatened or attacked. This is reflected in infrastructures and systems that are aimed at sharing capacities,
aligning regulatory regimes, sharing cyber-intelligence and establishing common resilience in the framework
of regional institutions like the African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS). A case in point is the Malabo Convention, which is a supra-national legal tool that seeks to tackle
cybercrime, data protection and digital sovereignty in Africa, developed by the AU (Bouke et al., 2023; AU,
2014). On the same note, ECOWAS has held high-level cyber-diplomacy briefings to facilitate resilience and
online collaboration at the regional level (ECOWAS, 2025). With a collective security prism, analysts can see
how regional networked system and data infrastructure inter-dependence builds perceptions of threats and how
states are sucked into cooperative (or even competitive) relationships of digital sovereignty.
Therefore, by basing the analysis on the theory of securitization and concept of collective security, one may
infer the way in which states and regional organizations are defining cybersecurity not as a technical field, but
as an essential aspect of national and regional survival, sovereignty and stability. Cyber-threats are
approximated as existential incentive mobilisation, regulatory transformation and institutional innovation; and
regional institutions are utilized in order to overcome the transnationality of cyber-risks and in the
encouragement of digital sovereignty with the help of collective governance. These theoretical prisms point to
the potential and the challenge of applying cybersecurity (as national security), regional security complex
dynamics, and digital sovereignty to a consistent policy framework that responds to the challenges of the 21 st
century in the context of African reality.
Cyber Threat Landscape in Nigeria
The cyber threat environment in Nigeria is marked by an abundance of financially-driven intrusions especially
investment fraud, business email compromise (BEC), phishing and ransomware as well as the increasing
politically-driven disinformation efforts. In the report of Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria
(CSEAN) 2023, it is stated that billions of nairas are being lost annually by Nigerian organisations to
cyberattacks and the issue is not heavily regulated due to the fact that many players are interested in regulatory
compliance, but not in actual security architecture enhancements (Odumesi, 2023). Moreover, the trends
indicate that phishing and social-engineering-based fraud continue to be some of the most widespread vectors,
particularly in the SMEs and public-sector organisations (CSEAN, 2023). These reports highlight that threat
actors are taking advantage of poor email hygiene, inadequate use of multi-factor authentication and older
systems in both public and private networks, and large scale ransomware attacks are disproportionately
affecting healthcare, financial services and critical-service providers and increasing operation disruption and
recovery expenses (Odumesi, 2023).
The main characteristic of the cyber-crime ecosystem in Nigeria is the organised locally-based communities
popularly known as the Yahoo Boys whose operations extend to advance-fee fraud and more sophisticated. The
social and organisational forms of these organizations are described with references to the apprenticeship
models and specialised divisions (e.g., social-engineering teams, money-movement specialists) (Orji, 2023).
Although most of the operations continue to be transnational in influence (victims are usually abroad),
domestic weaknesses like lack of investment in cyber policing, lack of digital forensic capacity, and absence of
inter-agency coordination provide enabling conditions that not only protect but also expand these criminal
networks (Saidu, Suleiman & Akpan, 2021). These two factors of high demand, low domestic defence and
international opportunity make Nigeria a good area to fight over by malicious actors.
The economic and reputational impact of cybercrime on Nigerian economy and institutions is not trivial:
empirical evidence suggests that cyber-incidents lead to direct financial losses, loss of investor confidence and
increase in the costs of operations to enterprises that need to harden systems and insure them against attacks
(Saidu et al., 2021). Macro-level effects of these dynamics are loss of digital trust that limits potential GDP
contributions of a digital economy that is otherwise booming; institutional-level, the lack of threat-intelligence
sharing and more protracted incident-response increases recovery and recovery costs of organisations under
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attack (Odumesi, 2023). A combination of these causes a scenario where organised fraud syndicates and
external malicious actors have asymmetric advantages over defenders of both the public and the private sector.
Nigeria’s National Cybersecurity Architecture
The National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy (NCPS) 2021 forms the basis of the national cybersecurity
architecture in Nigeria and is aimed at establishing a secure and resilient cyberspace by enhancing governance,
safeguarding critical information systems, and developing a coordinated institutional capacity (NCP Report,
2021). The policy states that; “Nigeria will develop and sustain a general governance framework on
cybersecurity, define the roles and responsibilities between government agencies and formulate a consistent
strategic framework. The document identifies partnerships with the industry and the multi-stakeholder
approach, as well as global collaboration, as the key building blocks of national cyber defence (NCP Report,
2021; Diplo Report, 2022)”. Essentially, the NCPS 2021 is an effort to institutionalize the changing nature of
Nigeria towards the concept of securing cyberspace by providing a framework of how institutions should be
coordinated, manage risks, and reduce threats under the umbrella of a single policy.
Table 1.1 Ranking of focus countries in the Global Cybersecurity Index and National Cybersecurity Index.
Source: Diplo Report, 2021
The table is the comparison of the African countries of interest in terms of cybersecurity performance
according to the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) 2020 and the National Cyber Security Index (NCSI) 2022.
In GPI scores, Ghana (86.69, rank 43) and Nigeria (84.76, rank 47) are the leaders as they have more effective
institutional structures and preparedness. Nevertheless, Nigeria is still the top ranked on the NCSI (54.55, rank
61), with better real-time capacity. Namibia (11.47, position 155) and Senegal (35.85, position 100) are not
doing well in both indicators, indicating poor infrastructure and policies. Altogether, the differences between
GCI and NCSI indicate that the implementation of cybersecurity in comparison with the policy development in
African states is different.
Under this structure, such important institutions as the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), the
National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) have significant and overlapping roles. Under the ONSA, the NCPS 2021 puts the
coordination of incident-response, cyber intelligence and national-level threat awareness (Federal Republic of
Nigeria, 2021). In the meantime, NITDA will be involved with the promotion of the digital economy
infrastructure, establishing standards regarding the ICT security and aiding with the capacity-building
(NIGERIAN Journals Online, 2024). Although the EFCC is more of an anti-fraud and financial-crime agency,
it has also become more active in prosecuting cyber-crime offences and contributing to enforcement of the
wider cybersecurity agenda (Adisa, 2023; Awhefeada and Ogechi, 2020). Regardless of the delineation of
roles, studies have indicated that multi agencies contributions have led to the development of jurisdiction
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overlaps, coordination challenges and uneven adoption of policy across sectors (Rasaq, 2025; Idowu and
Madaki, 2021).
I argue that the architecture however has serious capacity gaps and implementation issues. Research shows that
despite the formal frameworks and strategies, practitioners and stakeholder awareness is low: less than a
quarter of surveyed professionals stated that they were very familiar with national cybersecurity strategies,
which shows that there are severe gaps in dissemination and training (Rasaq, 2025). Other literature identifies
human-resource deficits (skills, expertise), insufficient funding, ineffective infrastructure and poor
enforcement systems as the primary barriers (Carver, 2024; UNESCO, 2025). As an illustration, in
investigations into cyber-crime control in Nigeria, researchers note that the lack of institutional capacity,
inadequately equipped law-enforcement bodies and ineffective legal frameworks are a great impediment to the
effective response to cyber threats (Idowu & Madaki, 2021; Awhefeada and Ogechi, 2020). Moreover, a
significant portion of organizations in the private sector have been limited in their ability to embrace the best
practices of cybersecurity amid the increased threat (Abdulmalik, 2025).
Collectively, the NCPS 2021 and institutional framework are indicators of awareness on the strategic
significance of cybersecurity in Nigeria, and a positive move towards a consistent national cyber-defence
stance. However, the performance of this architecture is still hindered by the lack of coherent coordination,
redundancy of institutional mandate and lack of pervasiveness in capacity. The system must also be backed by
long-term investment in awareness, training, sector-wide coordination and enforcement capacity to realise its
potential as highlighted by recent studies on the governance of cybersecurity in Nigeria (Carver, 2024; Rasaq,
2025).
Regional Cooperation and Collective Cybersecurity Efforts in West Africa
The West African countries have now realized that within the transnational international system, cyber threats
are more likely to cross national borders and require regional efforts and unified actions. In 2011, the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) made a timely move by adopting the Directive
C/DIR.1/08/11 on Fighting Cybercrime obligating the member states to criminalise certain online offences as
well as establishing structures on legal cooperation and technological co-operation (ECOWAS, 2011). On the
continental level, the Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection otherwise referred to as the
Malabo Convention was created by the African Union (AU) in 2014. This treaty has a detailed legal
framework that interconnects cybercrime prevention, data protection, and e-commerce regulation in the unified
governing framework (African Union, 2014). Adewopo et al. (2025) note that both tools show how Africa tries
to institutionalize the governance of cybersecurity by legal harmonization and multilateral interaction, which
are needed to have an impact on curbing the digital vulnerabilities in a region where internet use is rapidly
increasing yet the institutions are poorly positioned to support these regulations.
These legal structures have been supplemented by the operational networks. An example is that the West and
Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN) has integrated cybersecurity awareness and
incident-response training in its research and academic curricula, which enhances digital resilience in
universities and research centers who host many critical infrastructures (Adewopo et al., 2025). Equally,
AFRIPOL or African Police Cooperation Organization enables member-state law enforcement agencies to
coordinate performances in the attempt to stop transnational crimes, including cyber-enabled crimes (Ijaiya,
2024). These efforts are further translated into national and subregional Computer Emergency Response Teams
(CERT) that act as technical nodes in the detection and response of cyber incidents. As Mohamed and Kamau
(2023) note, such CERTs, even in their new form, are very crucial in regional threat intelligence sharing and
early-warning systems that would allow a quicker response to inter-country cyber-attacks.
Nevertheless, such structures notwithstanding, the efficiency of regional cybersecurity collaboration is still
limited by the issues of coordination and capacity. Research has indicated the presence of long-standing policy
gap, maladaptive home legislation, and institutional implementation fracturedness (Ijaiya, 2024; Adewopo et
al., 2025). The 2011 Directive is yet to be domesticated into national law in most ECOWAS states and
therefore there is inconsistent application and less legal interoperability (Adewopo et al., 2025). Furthermore,
there is usually an issue with the sovereignty sensitivities that hinder the intelligence sharing between the states
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that fear letting sensitive information or the vulnerabilities of their operations be revealed (Bouke et al., 2023).
This is reinforced by the statistics released by INTERPOL on the regional crime in 2025 that indicated over 30
percent of reported crimes in West and East Africa were cybercrime, and 86 percent of countries cited poor
international cooperation and technical capacity as limiting effective implementation (Nairametrics Report,
2025). This is how a divide exists between policy making and real implementation a divide that is enhanced by
sparse funding, skewed technological coverage and disparate national interests.
To a more optimistic extent, joint training sessions and building digital forensics capabilities become a ray of
light in the cybersecurity situation in West Africa. With the help of the ECOWAS European Union OCWAR-C
project, there was the creation of a digital forensic lab in The Gambia to enhance technical investigative
capacity and promote cooperation at the regional level (ECOWAS, 2025). Other member states have also
launched similar capacity-building programs, where hands-on training, simulation exercises and standard
forensic methods are important factors (Adewopo et al., 2025).
These efforts have enhanced the competence of the practitioners and enlarged the admissibility of digital
evidence in courts, which is essential in prosecuting cybercriminals. However, despite this, as Mohamed and
Kamau (2023) observe, there is the issue of sustainability because of the financial constraints and a shortage of
accreditation criteria of digital forensic specialists in the area. Such gains may be short lived unless there is a
consistent investment and policy follow up.
The cybersecurity regional architecture in West Africa is ambitious but poorly implemented. ECOWAS
Directive and the AU Malabo Convention have established a critical legal and normative basis of cooperation,
whereas the operational platforms in the form of WACREN, AFRIPOL and national CERTs have enabled slow
but steady capacity building and coordination. Nevertheless, as Adewopo et al. (2025) and Bouke et al. (2023)
note, the lack of coordination, the sensitivity of sovereignty, and the lack of resources still hinder the
comprehensive implementation of collective cyber defense. The experience of West Africa proves that legal
and institutional advancement is visible, but cyber threats are changing more rapidly than the policy changes.
As a result, the process of building resilient regional cybersecurity posture requires continuous cooperation,
legal harmonization, and the further enhancement of trust between states in terms of sharing intelligence and
resources.
Empirical Assessment: Challenges and Opportunities for Nigeria in Regional Cooperation
The economic and population density of Nigeria in West Africa still characterizes its primary position and the
obstacles it experiences in collaborating with others regionally. Nigeria is the largest economy and most
populous country in the region and thus has a great influence in Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) but this dominance has its restrictions to integration in the region. Indicatively, researchers find
that institutional poorly endowed giant economies are likely to generate intra-regional trade performance that
is less than the expectations in the existence of structural imbalances (Gammadigbe, 2021). The hegemony of
the ECOWAS by Nigeria has been examined, and the authors observe that the hegemony faces domestic
governance, economic inequalities and policy inconsistencies as major challenges to its ability to spearhead
integration in an effective way (Moses, 2024). These institutional and structural characteristics imply that the
market size of Nigeria presents a regional opportunity to develop its value-chain, but its poor diversification of
the economy and poor infrastructure limits its capacity to enable sustainable intra-ECOWAS trade flows.
Another level of difficulty in the regional engagements in Nigeria is institutional preparedness and allotment of
resources. Empirical studies of West Africa demonstrate that the quality of institutions is a major predictor of
intra-regional trade: the stronger the institutions, the more they trade with their neighbours and the weaker the
institutions, the weaker the services such as the poor quality of public services, border procedures and
corruption which deter trade integration (Gammadigbe, 2021). With regards to the example of Nigeria, the
results of the hegemonic role analysis suggest a lower ability of this country to operationalize regional
agreements due to its internal institutional restrictions such as bureaucratic fragmentation, lack of inter-agency
coordination and under-resourced regional implementation (Moses, 2024; Ameh et al, 2025). Moreover, the
skewed distribution of resources to the regional infrastructure and multilateral programmes dilute leadership of
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common good by Nigeria hence inhibiting the multiplier impact of its economic dimension to the larger
region.
Policy convergence in ECOWAS is still the foundation of joint development, whereas the domestic policy
situation in Nigeria tends to be dissimilar to regional standards. The study of the Nigerian foreign policy in
West Africa has been focused on two aspects of its participation in the security and regional politics yet less in
the economic and institutional aspects of integration (Ogele, 2025). In a broader sense, the literature on
regional integration in West Africa highlights institutional harmonisation, convergence of trade policies and
regulatory convergence as the major prerequisites of increased cooperation but none are perfect throughout the
sub-region (Aryeetey, 2001; Gammadigbe, 2021). In the case of Nigeria, the realignment of such areas as
customs regulation, facilitation of digital trade and regulation of sectoral infrastructure is a quantifiable chance
to develop further integration on the condition of domestic reforms. Finally, the perspective of regional
cooperation in Nigeria is a two-sided situation: the size and power of the nation make it irreplaceable to the
success of ECOWAS, but internal governance, inconsistency of institutions, and policy remain as the obstacles
to its success.
CONCLUSION
This study has revealed that the cybersecurity situation of Nigeria is closely connected to the general national
security and stability issues in the region. As the economic and the governance systems of the country are
becoming more digitized, the complexity of the cyber threats of organized criminal networks to politically
motivated disinformation is multidimensional challenges to the sovereignty, critical infrastructure, and trust of
the population. The National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy (NCPS, 2021) has a well-organized plan of
action, which is to be followed upon the response, but the lack of institutional cohesion, lack of capacity, and
poor enforcement mechanisms remain the obstacles to its efficiency. The research discovered that the
vulnerabilities of cybersecurity in Nigeria are not unique and singular but a subset of a wider regional security
complex in West Africa whereby cyber risks are transnational.
Applying the securitization theory, the study revealed that the policy recognition but not yet adequate
operational coordination of cyber threats in Nigeria has been made possible through the reframing of cyber
threats as existential national security problems. In the meantime, collective security model highlights the need
of regional synergy within the ECOWAS and the AU systems like Malabo Convention. Yet, the difference
between policy formulation and effective application is still significant, with the lack of effective intelligence-
sharing regimes, sovereignty-related sensitivities, and the absence of institutional capacity expanding the range
of cyber vulnerability in the region. Therefore, Nigeria has the highest indicators of regional digital readiness,
but it continues to have difficulties transforming this leadership into regionally integrated cybersecurity
governance.
Policy Recommendations
I recommend that Nigeria needs to focus on institutional coherence, capacity-building, and multilateral trust-
building in order to be able to reinforce its national and regional cybersecurity posture. To begin with,
achieving a balance between overlapping institutional mandates between the Office of the National Security
Adviser (ONSA), NITDA, and EFCC would facilitate operational efficiency and responsibility clarity. Second,
the long-term human-resource capacity building in specialized training, cybersecurity training, and technical
cooperation will help fill gaps in existing skills as suggested by Carver (2024) and UNESCO (2025).
Third, Nigeria needs to more thoroughly integrate its Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) with
ECOWAS and AFRIPOL models to improve coordination of cross-border threat intelligence and incident
response. Furthermore, Nigeria should lead coordination of legislation harmonization between the states in the
ECOWAS region so that the 2011 Cybercrime Directive and the Malabo Convention can be domesticated and
legal interoperability can be achieved in prosecution and sharing of evidence. Enhanced public-private
collaboration would also capitalize on local innovation and commercial infrastructure in safeguarding critical
infrastructure, as well as, integrating cybersecurity into digital transformation and sustainable development
agendas would help to create resilience beyond compliance. Lastly, the leadership of Nigeria in the ECOWAS
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must be transformed into a form of facilitation that creates trust and technical solidarity between the member
states through the common laboratory, simulation drills, and pooling of resources. It is only in the context of
these coherent domestic changes and a real regional cooperation that Nigeria can turn its cyber policy
frameworks into effective security architecture that can both ensure the national interests and make a valuable
contribution to the overall cyber resiliency in West Africa.
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