The Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Dr. Tayo Aduloju, has declared that “Nigeria urgently requires a new digital economy resilience analytics tool to support institutional preparedness” in responding to cyber-security risks and threats.
Aduloju declared this yesterday while delivering a lecture on the theme: “Building Digital Resilience: Governance, Risks and Compliance” at the 2025 Biennial lecture in honour of the President of the Chartered Institute of Directors Nigeria, Mr. Tijjani M. Borodo (F.CIoD).
He stated that digital transformation is now global reality which boards of organisations must arm itself to take advantage of and mitigate its risks.
Aduloju said: “Board must think about a complete framework and the first thing is to transform your risk assessment to include cyber risk dimension.
“Also ensuring regular assessment to track cyber risk is important. This allows you to determine the extent, context and of course integrating cyber risks into your other risks and allows you to drive decisions based on what you have known as your risk.”
According to him, organisations must establish and maintain core security fundamentals since 95 per cent cyber-attacks eminate from few unmanaged laptops in terms of passwords and second authentications.
He, therefore, advised organisations to “ensure that your software licences have not expired and that your security protocols are on. Have a system that creates semi-complex password for your organisation.
“All these little things make a huge difference on how people enter your system. Implement cyber security audit as part of the internal audit and use it to ensure that corrective measures that cultivate a culture of resilience are in place.”
Aduloju said that global cyber threats grew by 150 per cent in 2024 and that 53 per cent of them were targeted at government’s institutions while their success rate was estimated at 58 per cent.
According to him, the scale of cyber-attacks in the Nigerian banking industry grew by 1,300 per cent in the past two years.
He said: “Technological acceleration, therefore, means that while inequalities grow in our (Nigeria) capacity to use technology, those that know how to use it best will continue to implement greater risks and threats and in a connected world this will be a significant problem.
“The most significant impact of this is that the data we receive is now questionable because of the scale of misinformation and disinformation.
“There is a complete consensus that disinformation, misinformation and cyber threats are problem to both the private and public sectors’ actors.”
He advised organisation to drive digital resiliency efforts by eliminating “siloed thinking to ensure that the team can see across departments and business units to deploy technology solutions and identify any resilience gap.”
He also urged the CIoD Nigeria to lead in shaping governance model where cyber security and digital resilience capabilities should become part of the core competences of a chartered director “as we shape a future that is safe not just for our businesses but for our families, children and that our economy is better positioned to compete in the 4th industrial revolution.”
In his welcome address, Borodo, acknowledged that the key fallout of the CIoD Nigeria’s Charter Act is the license to produce “charter directors.”
Borodo also spoke on the rebranding of the CIoD Nigeria, which commenced in the wake of the institute’s transition to a Chartered Institute and the Governing Council’s approval of the establishment of the Rebranding Committee in 2024.
“I am happy to note that today, we reach a crescendo of the rebranding efforts as we proudly unveiled the new logo of the CIoD Nigeria.”
