President Bola Tinubu has ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria to immediately suspend the implementation of the 0.5 per cent cybersecurity levy.
The information and national orientation minister, Mohammed Idris on Tuesday disclosed that the presidential directive was in response to public outrage at the policy.
Idris said President Tinubu had directed the apex bank to temporarily halt the enforcement of the cybersecurity levy and review the methods for its application.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Security and Intelligence, Senator Shehu Umar Buba, had earlier clarified that the cybersecurity levy was not targeted at individuals or bank customers.
The Senator, who sponsored the amendment bill told Economic Confidential that the levy was targeted at financial institutions and telecom companies, the most vulnerable sectors to financial crimes and cyber fraud, to enhance cybersecurity measures and national security in the country.
He noted that the relevant section of the Cybercrime Act was very clear about the businesses that were required to pay the levy, not the citizens.
“The Act is very explicit about who is responsible for the payment, not Nigerian citizens or individuals. The relevant Section of the Cybercrime Act 2015 listed the businesses required to pay the levy: telecommunications companies, Internet Service Providers, Banks, Insurance Companies, the Nigerian Stock Exchange, and other Financial Institutions,” he said.
“The organisations in the sectors have been listed in previous circulars by the Central Bank of Nigeria, especially in 2018. The new circular by the CBN further provided many exemptions.”
Senator Buba also explained the amount payable as a cybersecurity levy.
“It is either 0.005 or 0.5% arithmetically. The figure in the principal act was 0.005 as a fraction, which was converted to the percentage that became 0.5% in the amendment. Therefore, the statistics in fractions and percentages are the same,” he said.
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