Communicating Cybercrime Proliferation in Nigeria’s Recession Since 2015: A Study of Youths Awareness, Knowledge and Attitude in Enugu State.

Abstract: This paper is on “Communicating Cybercrime Proliferation in Nigeria Economic Recession since 2015: a case of Enugu State Youths.” The general objective is to ascertain the level of knowledge of respondents towards cybercrime engagements in Enugu state Nigeria. It is a cross-sectional study of 384 respondents. The total population of the study is 1.380,000 across various local governments in Enugu State, Nigeria. The work was anchored on “Social Learning Theory”. The data was collected using questionnaires. The instrument was administered purposely and analyzed using SPSS version 25.0. The results were presented on simple tables and percentages. The data showed respondents’ level of knowledge on cybercrimes was moderate and majority of the respondents believe the inflation rate fluctuations since 2015 in Nigeria necessitated cybercrime engagement intensification by Youths in these regions. Despite the death punishments for cybercrimes culprits globally, many Nigerian youths in this region still engage in various cybercrime activities. The respondent’s adoption of several cybercrimes reflects wealth chase and lack of contentment by young people. The various issues resulting in dependence on cybercrimes as a lifestyle is fueled from greed, unhealthy competition, peer pressure, poor institutional management and all these have attributed prevalence nature of deep cybercrime culture. Although the social issues constituted to the reason for cybercrime engagements, the consequences and adverse effects of cybercrimes can shortchange youths’ prospects. The work recommends a mailable policy that enshrines crime consequences in school curricular from Primary schools to help curb inherent crime culture in the teeming youths.