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Nigerian ex-police chief, Mr. Solomon Arase, has canvassed for use of ICT to fight crime. The former Inspector-General of Police this week in aria, north of the country, advised government to leverage ICT in combatting rising incidents of crime.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Arase argued that internal security could be best enhanced when government invest in ICT infarstructures and training for personnel in his paper presentation titled: “Strengthening and Evaluating National Security” at the 50th Anniversary and International Conference held inside the main campus of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Samaru, Zaria.
The conference with the theme: “National Question, Security and Governance in Nigeria” was organised by the Department of Political Science in ABU.
“We are now living in a globalised world where technology is both a challenge and also a solution. As a challenge, virtually all crimes are conceptualised and manifested with the use of technology such as cybercrimes, kidnapping, insurgency and armed robbery among others.
“Conversely, technology is also a solution to internal security threats, as it provides solutions, hardware and softwares that could be engaged and deployed to present the text and destruct elements that constitute threats,” said Arase.
The ex-police boss argued that Nigeria needs the consent of her people and communities to make policing more effective as against the current attitude of the security architecture that assumed that citizens are a conquered people within a conquered territory as was the attitude of the British when she ruled Nigeria as a colony.
Government needs a mix of diplomacy, military law enforcements, and community rapprochements to effectively tackle issues that border on national security, said Arase.
NAN reports that the former Governor of Katsina State, Alhaji Ibrahim Shehu-Shema, described ABU as past, present and future of Nigeria while he noted that education remains the engine that drives development.
Vice Chancellor of ABU, Prof. Ibrahim Garba, said history of Political Science Department in ABU was synonymous with the history of the university itself.
