Experiences of local victims of Yahoo Boys’ socio-economic cybercrimes in Nigeria

Despite much cybercrime originating in Nigeria, little is known about national victims compared to international victims of these crimes. In this study, we utilise the results from a survey of 1034 university staff and students to assess their experiences of victimisation using the Tripartite Cybercrime Framework (TCF). This framework distinguishes between socio-economic, geopolitical, and psychosocial forms of cybercrime. The analysis revealed a gender distribution skewed toward males (64.9%) and a notable predominance of Master’s students. Among participants who reported cybercrime victimisation (65.4%), all incidents were classified under the socio-economic category. This pattern highlights the dominance of financially motivated cybercrime in the Nigerian context. These offences, listed in descending order of prevalence, include e-banking and payment-card fraud (58.6%), identity theft (11.1%), job scams (10.9%), cryptocurrency scams (10.6%), non-delivery scams (4.8%), and phishing attacks (4.0%). Alongside these TCF-related findings, our data indicate that among affected individuals, 354 men (52.4%) and 322 women (47.6%) reported negative consequences. In the full sample, 64.9% were male and 35.1% were female. However, only 38.7% of victims reported their incidents to authorities, and 14.9% received any form of restitution. This study builds on preliminary findings by pioneering the use of the Tripartite Cybercrime Framework with a larger, more diverse quantitative dataset to provide valuable insights into global research gaps and response disparities.