THE QUEST FOR A NEW CRITERION FOR THE CRIMINALIZATION OF CYBERCRIME IN NIGERIA

Since the Internet was invented and began its revolutionary influence in all spheres of human activity, including law, the world has responded continuously to its imperatives. No less engaged is the response of criminal law reform because the cyberspace information superhighway also became the cyber criminals’ superhighway. States and international organisations have continued to embark on criminal law and criminal procedure law reform in response to the challenges posed by cybercrime. In the aspect of criminalisation as a necessary fall out of law reform, novel crimes arising from novel phenomena borne by cyberspace and re-definition of traditional crimes are being attended to by legislation. Noticeably, private investigation of cybercrime and non-criminalised harm routed through cyberspace is difficult to undertake because of several imperatives legally required and socially inherent with investigation in cyberspace. The result is that it is financially costly and otherwise difficult for the individual to undertake such investigation and this is more evident in poor countries. If the state does not get involved in sponsoring investigation, most Internet borne crimes and non-criminalised harmful activity will go un-redressed, leaving the individual victim to grind with his hurt. Basically the state does not investigate or sponsor investigation of acts (and omissions) which do not amount to crime or which do not lead to probable civil penalisation for breach of official regulation or rules. Only criminalised acts may be investigated at the instance of the state, with a possibility that the individual victim of crime would obtain redress in due course. Adopting a doctrinal approach and taking a look at some existing law literature and laws on or impinging on the subject, this article concluded that the present criteria for criminalisation should admit another criterion which justifies criminalization of all harms routed through cyberspace to the detriment of the individual person, as the only realistic and viable means of achieving individual redress of any sort, both at criminal and civil law. This article thus recommended the individual victim redress interest principle as a new criminalisation criterion in the light of cyberspace.