With Adetunji Ayobrown
Creative mind they say is a terrible thing to waste, and an idle mind is also said to be the devil’s workshop. But it is however ironical that Nigeria with over fifty million young, inventive, youthful minds is categorised with countries where internet fraud and scams are frequent occurrence and on the highest side. Oh My God! What can be responsible for this colossal wastage of national human assets and talents?
It is rather disheartening, each and every time the news of arrest of Nigerian citizens over their involvement in shady internet related deals. It reduces the number of creative minds that ought to be one of ‘ever-ready army’ battle-prepared to contribute his quota to Nigeria’s growth in a way or the other…then, the country’s progress chain is weakened if not entirely broken, however put the collective country’s development on hold.
Misapplication of God’s given talents and wrong usage of professional qualifications can be seen as a factor that led many of the likes of the 19 Nigerians arrested in Nairobi, Kenya for Facebook, M-Pesa scam, and internet fraud during last week where they deployed their brain’s might to wrong adventures.
Some analysts differ on certain issues regarding what should be and not over application and usage of one’s profession in real life situations.
Let us imaging some scenarios, with all apologies to these professions, a self confessed armed robber who paid a lawyer to defend him in the law court, one would have expected that the learned professional too in the name of the law, which he had sworn to, to either arrest the culprit or report such to appropriate authorities and save our entire community an identified/repeated calamities. But, people argued that it is a lay man’s knowledge of the law to think as such, as every man is entitled to legal representation (even the condemned too).
Or a case of computer guru who knows more than necessary about his profession is hired to hack the database of a corporation or unauthorised penetration of country’s defence system, which will put us all at risk. The question now is will the law of the land discharge and acquit him if he fell of the unfortunate side of the lather at the end of the process, just because he is doing his paid/hired job? Or, will anyone call him blameless if such secret adventure turned open? For most people, the answer will definitely be NO …then, it bring us to the fact about what is right and what is wrong about each and every profession.
Medical doctors/trained health officers that involved their knowledge in unauthorised ‘mercy killing’ or even in pregnancy abortion, is nothing but disaster. One could but imagine what can happen when best of medicines or drugs are misused or wrongly applied. Or overzealous security agents deployed his/her trainings and expertises against the state, is not funny, but hilarious and dangerous.
Some are of the opinion that since they are hired, they are only doing their paid job and no qualms, while wondered the aftermath of such events where the just are punished and the unjust are freed in the name hiring good hands in defence of criminal acts.
Sometime ago, Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) arrested 13 suspected Internet fraudsters for conspiracy, possession of fraudulent documents and obtaining money under false pretence.
These Nigerians were arrested on in some parts of Lagos and Ogun states, following intelligence report received by the Commission about their activities which includes phishing, love scam, forgery, spoofing and business e-mail compromise, among other offences, all these experts said are no small engagement even for professional fraudsters and scammers.
Phishing for instance is an attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details (and money), often for malicious reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication which involves lots of technical expertises and professional know-how …a knowledge wrongly applied if you ask me.
Spoofing, on the other hand, is a type of scam where intruder attempts to gain unauthorised access to a user’s system or information by pretending to be the user. This also requires vast knowledge and time, using information and communication technology strategies and plans in order to achieve success…what a wrongful deployment of useful talents.
Music is nothing when the audiences are deaf, we all know the truth, but often turn blind eyes and deaf ears, justifying our wrong acts, forgetting the effect of such on the larger society…while putting blame on government and others but oneself.
To me and many others, any business and knowledge applied that bring about the acquiring many cars, which include Range Rover SUV, Toyota Highlander, Toyota Corolla and Toyota Camry, many laptops, flash drives, internet modems, and the likes is no small enterprise; but legitimacy is brought to question only for the people with conscience who had not lost values and ethics of their profession.
An arrow shot by an archer may or may not kill a single person, but stratagem fashioned by a skilled professional, can kill even babies in the womb. Many youths through self-efforts and development, had been able to rewired their brains making it more potent and becomes a weapon readily available for easy deployment, a case someone described as a 3-pin computer microchips becoming more powerful than a massive 70-tonnes armoured tank (no wonder, even the biggest warships and combat aircrafts are controlled by tiny artificial intelligent computer microchips). Proper and legitimate usage of our profession is what the entire society should stand for in order to use these God’s gifts /talents and self-acquired knowledge for the goodness of us all.
Education without religion is training and building clever devils, government, policy makers and educational institutions should make ‘course appreciation’ a must for all students as part of requirement and fulfilment before the course graduation and completion.
Finally, with the worlds of Ralph Waldo Emerson, where he said there is no privacy that cannot be penetrated, and no secrete can be kept forever in this civilised world (I will say technology in action)…since modern ICT techniques and software are readily available for downloads, which can do most if not all possible on computer systems and online, but human values and every profession’s ethics are needed ingredients that must be applied and followed in our day-today’s life skill application for the betterment of mankind and entire human race.
If we can all abide by human norms and values in our professional dealings, most societal vices will disappear just like writing/editing computer programming codes, where a single error can generated hundreds more and in its reverse can also corrected all.
A single wrongly-programmed or malfunctioned microchip can rendered useless the biggest weapon known in history, apply your expertise.
Ciao!
