About six of every ten undergraduates in Nigerian universities are involved in cybercrime, Economic anf Financial Crimes Comission Chairman Olanipekun Olukoyede has said.
He disclosed this on Tuesday in Kano at the 8th Biennial Conference of the Committee of Pro-Chancellors of State-Owned Universities in Nigeria, themed “Unlocking the Potentials of Artificial Intelligence:
University Governance, Internationalization and Rankings.”
According to him, intelligence gathered from EFCC operations and investigations over the past year showed what he described as a “disturbing normalisation” of internet fraud among students.
He lamented that the development was no longer isolated, noting that several of those arrested in recent operations were undergraduates who had also begun infiltrating institutional systems.
“In some cases, we have discovered students not just involved in cybercrime, but actively compromising academic processes, including influencing staff and manipulating internal systems,” he said.
He cited a recent major operation in Lagos where 792 suspects linked to a transnational cybercrime network were arrested, stressing that a “significant number” were students.
He said the exercise, powered by artificial intelligence tools, revealed the “depth, structure and sophistication” of cybercrime syndicates operating across Nigeria and beyond.
He also raised concern over the rise of “Yahoo Plus,” describing it as a dangerous evolution of internet fraud involving fetish practices.
“This is no longer just financial crime; it is becoming a dangerous moral and psychological crisis among young people,” he said.
He urged universities to take stronger responsibility in tackling the menace, warning that unchecked academic environments were becoming breeding grounds for cybercrime.
“A university system that cannot detect fraud within its own structure cannot be trusted to produce credible graduates,” he said.
He emphasised the need for the deployment of artificial intelligence in university governance, saying technology must now play a central role in monitoring finances, payroll systems, procurement and academic integrity.
“The world has moved on. Universities that fail to embrace AI-driven accountability systems will continue to suffer leakage, fraud and institutional decay,” he warned.
He added that the EFCC was already leveraging AI in digital forensics and financial tracking, but stressed that technology must complement, not replace, human judgment in enforcement.
