Institutional typology of cybercrime enforcement in Nigeria using EFCC conviction records

Cybercrime research in Nigeria has largely focused on offender motivations, victim experiences, and regulatory gaps, with limited use of official administrative data to examine the institutional structure of cybercrime enforcement. This study provides a systematic analysis of cyber-related convictions recorded by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2022. Using a keyword-based content analysis of publicly available EFCC conviction records (N = 3785), the study identifies and classifies cyber-enabled offences and develops an institutional typology of prosecuted cybercrime in Nigeria. A total of 524 cyber-related cases were extracted from the full conviction dataset and grouped into analytic offence categories. These categories were inductively derived from the offence descriptions recorded in the dataset and include: impersonation and identity fraud; cybercrime and affiliated offences (general); computer-related offences; and business email compromise. Descriptive statistical analysis was used to examine the distribution of offence types and to assess patterns in enforcement focus. Findings indicate that Nigerian cybercrime enforcement is heavily concentrated on impersonation-based and cyber-affiliated offences, with relatively limited representation of technically driven cyber offences. The study demonstrates how institutional data can be used to generate empirical insights into national cybercrime profiles and highlights structural concentration in enforcement priorities. The results contribute to cybercrime scholarship by shifting attention from perception-based studies toward evidence derived from formal criminal justice records. Importantly, the study’s scope is limited to EFCC conviction records, and its findings reflect the enforcement priorities of this specific agency rather than the full landscape of cybercrime prosecution in Nigeria.