By Adekunle Adekoya

IT is heart-warming to note that at last, the Federal Government is beginning to appreciate the reality of adopting ICT-based solutions to our current security problems.

Last Friday in Abuja, Interior Minister, Abba Moro disclosed in an encounter with newsmen that negotiations are on with some foreign organisations to install layered surveillance systems along our borders. He explained further:

“This layered surveillance has the capacity to detect and identify people who enter Nigeria illegally and people who carry equipment that can compromise our internal security. By the time we put this plan in place, it will have a central control, so that even right here in Abuja, you can know what is happening at our borders in Maiduguri, Sokoto or Lagos.”

Very well. For the benefit of our readers, a layered surveillance system is one that adopts several ICT strategies as well as physical security combining video surveillance, access control and intrusion technologies to man points of ingress and egress.

Need for digital security system

My own take on this development is that though it is welcome, it amounts to shutting the barn doors after the horses have escaped. There is no doubt that our happy-go-lucky way of doing things, especially governance is a chicken that is now roosting at home.

Again, there is no doubt that aliens simply stroll into our country at will, do what they want, and stroll back the way they came, only to resurface at will again. That this has become a major security issue is scratching the matter on the surface.

Our current experience with security, especially the spate of bombings and wanton slaughter indicates that a major paradigm shift must occur — from an analog approach to a digital one, afterall this is the 21st century. Every aspect of access control — at the air and sea ports, land border posts — everywhere must be digitalised.

I keep repeating — by now, given the resources God endowed us with, we are supposed to be at a level such that if you enter a police station, even if to say hello to your brother who is a policeman, your biometric details will automatically be captured through the access control system which must have been installed there, and stored. But our police stations remain locked in the early 20th century format.

Work with Nigerians

The other aspect of Minister Moro’s disclosure that attracted my attention is the one relating to consultations with some “foreign organisations” regarding the surveillance system.

May I use this medium to humbly remind the minister of President Goodluck Jonathan’s directive to government agencies to buy local goods, issued by the President just a few weeks to the April elections. I do not know if Minister Moro sought out any Nigerian ICT operator before contacting foreigners, but executing the deal directly with foreigners will amount to direct capital flight.

I am sure ATCON and ITAN have enough competent members who can partner the Federal Government on a layered surveillance system. At worst, they could be brokers or vendors, but in the process, at least part of the money for the project would remain in Nigeria, while, with a local content clause worded into the contract, we’ll also be transferring technology.