Port Harcourt Expo Exposes Cybercrime’s Human Toll In Nigeria

Cybercrime is often sold as a fast track to success, but Robinson Tombari Sibe’s Port Harcourt warning lands like a wake-up call. Behind every scam is a real victim: savings wiped out, trust destroyed, dignity stripped away, and in some cases, lives lost. By invoking the Ogoshi brothers and the death of Jordan DeMay, Sibe…

Atlantic Post

June 15, 2026

4–6 minutes

Cyber Skills Bridge, Cybercrime, featured, Nigeria cybersecurity, Port Harcourt Tech Expo 2026, Robinson Tombari Sibe, Sextortion

At the Port Harcourt Tech Expo 2026 Cybersecurity Session, Robinson Tombari Sibe used a hard truth to strip away the glamour often attached to online fraud. His warning was plain. Cybercrime is not a shortcut to wealth. It is, as he framed it, a trade in ruined savings, ruined reputations, shattered mental health and, in the worst cases, ruined lives.

As his profile shows, Sibe is not speaking from the sidelines but from within the industry as CEO and Lead Forensic Examiner of Digital Footprints Ltd.

What gives the presentation its weight is the fact that it lands in the middle of a national crisis already documented by major institutions.

UNODC’s landmark Nigeria Cybercrime Assessment, published in December 2025, said Nigeria lost ₦1.1 trillion to cybercrime between 2017 and 2023, with $500 million lost in 2022 alone.

The same assessment warned of weak coordination, outdated forensic tools and siloed operations that still slow enforcement.

UNODC also noted that Nigeria’s internet penetration is now about 35 per cent of the population, a figure that captures both the opportunity and the exposure created by digital growth.

That is why Sibe’s central message matters. He told the audience that “the skills used to commit cybercrime could be repurposed and developed for positive and ethical use to defend organisations and nations.”

In other words, the problem is not only criminality. It is also wasted talent. Nigeria is producing young people who understand systems, social engineering, scripting, persuasion and digital manipulation.

The question, Sibe argued, is whether that intelligence is channelled into destruction or defence.

That argument aligns with recent international evidence showing that cybercrime in Africa is becoming more organised, more profitable and more embedded in everyday life.

INTERPOL’s Africa Cyberthreat Assessment 2025 says cybercrime now accounts for more than 30 per cent of all reported crimes in both Western and Eastern Africa, while over two thirds of surveyed African member countries described cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime as a medium to high share of all crime.

The Port Harcourt address also cut through the human cost that is often hidden behind the language of hacks, accounts and transactions. Sibe pointed to the Ogoshi brothers and the death of Jordan DeMay as a case study in how digital exploitation can become fatal.

That is not rhetorical exaggeration. The U.S. Department of Justice said Samuel Ogoshi and Samson Ogoshi, both of Lagos, were sentenced to 210 months in prison after a sextortion scheme that targeted more than 100 victims.

The department said Jordan DeMay, a 17 year old from Marquette, Michigan, died as a result of the scheme, and U.S. Attorney Mark Totten warned that the days of committing such crimes and escaping justice are over.

Attorney General Merrick Garland added that the sentences should serve as a warning that online sexual exploitation and extortion cannot escape accountability simply by hiding behind phones and computers.

This is where the report becomes more than a local speech and turns into a warning about a global criminal economy with Nigerian fingerprints.

The same Justice Department release said the brothers and a third defendant bought hacked social media accounts, posed as young women and contacted victims through fake profiles.

That detail is important because it shows how modern cybercrime has evolved beyond crude email fraud into a layered system of deception, grooming and coercion.

UNODC’s own assessment also warned that sextortion and revenge porn are rising crimes that damage children and destroy lives, while the U.S. Embassy’s law enforcement office said crimes such as sextortion and business email compromise have harmed thousands, even millions, of Americans.

Sibe’s reference to “Hustle Kingdoms” also places the debate in a wider academic and social context. The University of Portsmouth has described hustle kingdoms as informal academies that train individuals to carry out digital scams, noting that West Africa, particularly Ghana and Nigeria, is seeing their rise.

Cambridge scholars have gone further, defining hustle kingdoms as illegal cybercrime training academies that emerge from systemic socio-economic strain and evolve into sophisticated criminal networks.

That framing does not excuse the crimes, but it does explain why enforcement alone has struggled to end them. The problem is not just individual greed. It is the existence of an ecosystem that recruits, trains and normalises fraud.

That is precisely why Sibe ended not with despair but with a counterproposal. He said the answer lies in creating legitimate pathways for young Nigerians to use their technical abilities productively.

He also highlighted the Cyber Skills Bridge programme, a three month training, internship and mentorship initiative that Digital Footprints says is designed to equip entry level personnel and young professionals with practical cybersecurity knowledge.

The programme’s modules include cyber security fundamentals, network security, vulnerability assessment, penetration testing, incident response, digital forensics, threat intelligence and governance, risk and compliance.

In a country where cybercrime has become both a criminal threat and a talent trap, that kind of intervention is not a side project. It is part of the national response.

Seen in full, the Port Harcourt presentation was less a lecture than an indictment. It indicted a culture that glorifies fast money, an economy that leaves many young people searching for a way out and a digital environment where fraud can scale faster than law enforcement.

But it also offered a route forward. Nigeria cannot arrest its way out of cybercrime. It must train its way out, regulate its way out and mentor its way out.

That is the sharper message behind Sibe’s warning. The country’s cyber future will not be decided only by those who know how to break systems. It will be decided by those given the chance to protect them.