Arase: How to Detect, Prevent Crimes in Nigeria

Christopher Isiguzo

A former Inspector-General of Police (IG), Mr. Solomon Arase, at the weekend advocated a new legislation or amendment of extant laws to make installation of Close Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras as compulsory components for approval of public and commercial buildings in Nigeria.

This came as the incumbent IG, Ibrahim Idris, declared that for the country to effectively tackle the increasing spate of crimes and criminality, all segments of the nation’s security especially the police, Department of State Services (DSS) and the military must unite and pull efforts together.
Idris said the present day crimes had become more organised, complex and sophisticated and as such required team work to be checkmated.

Speaking in a paper he presented during a sensitisation workshop for law enforcement agencies on telecommunications issues, organised in Enugu on Wednesday by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Arase stated that the deployment of CCTV and other ICT tools would help in detection and prevention of crime in the country as they have done in other developed nations.

The former IG stated that ICT knowledge does not depend on rant, advocating that officers with a good knowledge of ICT should fished out and properly deployed while new ICT-compliant officers should be recruited to enhance prevention and detection in modern ICT society where crimes have gone dynamic.

He said it was the effective use of the ICT that helped the police apprehend the suspected Fulani herdsmen that attacked Nimbo community in Enugu State in 2016, as well the kidnappers of former Secretary to the Federal Government of the Federation and elder statesman, Chief Olu Falae, seven of whom he had been convicted recently.

“While ICT has assisted in dealing with security issues, it has also compounded security too because the criminals, the oraganised crimes we are dealing with, those guys are also very conversant with ICT, so you must be a dynamic security agent to be ahead of them because they keep on deploying it. I’m sure you read about two or three days ago how they said South Korean people were trying to hack into our banks, it’s an international crime, organized crime and it is trans-national; so you must be able to have the wherewithal, the intellectual depth to be able to deal with the issues,” he said.

In a keynote address, the IG, Idris, who was represented by the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Zone 9, with headquarters at Umuahia, Abia State, Mr. Hosea Hassan Karma, said security agencies must think afresh and acquire new skills and knowledge from the workshop, and chart a new course in the enforcement of the laws and other extant regulatory instruments designed to beat all forms of criminality.
“We must strive to always accommodate and co-operate with each other including institution of national strategic and economic importance in the discharge of onerous function of security-tending of our country as no organisation has the capacity to do it alone.”

Earlier in a welcome address, the Executive Vice-Chairman/CEO of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, stated that the workshop was organized to sensitise law enforcement officers on some key challenging issues in telecommunication regulation in Nigeria, stressing that it is one in the series of organised conscious self-activity of the commission instituted to underline our belief in forging strategic partnerships with a spectrum of stakeholders.
Represented by the Head, Compliance, Monitoring and Enforcement, Efosa Idehen, Prof. Danbatta disclosed that the long term objective of the workshop is to enhance the commissions’ ability to regulate effectively in order to consolidate the exponential gains recorded in the telecommunication industry in Nigeria.

He said the sensitisation became necessary following the growth witnessed in the telecommunications sector in the last fifteen years has been phenomenal by all standards.
“From less than half a million lines on the eve of our democratic revival, today, active connected telephones lines are about 150 million. This has come with a concomitant increase in teledensity.”
Enumerating the gains telecommunications sector have contributed to the development in the nation, contributing nearing 10 percent of the GDP, Danbatta said the commission look forward to seeing greater development in the sector as “we committed to full implementation of the National Broadband Plan.”

He disclosed that two infrastructure companies have been licensed to commence the deployment of more broadband fibre networks beyond the major cities in the country while five more companies will be licensed shortly.
He said its resolve to move fast and steadily in harnessing the promises of telecommunications in improving life and catalyse economic growth underscore the significance of the workshop to halt obstacles to the realization of the goals.