Nigeria’s fight against kidnappers, bandits and Boko Haram/Islamic State in West African Province (ISWAP) terrorists especially in Northern region of Nigeria is being hampered by the breakdown of key tracking equipment which was originally deployed by the Nigeria Police.
Sources said that the Police key tracking equipment has remained inactive since the beginning of the year even as no major move has been made to reactive it even with the sporadic kidnapping and violence by the non-State actors.
The situation is such that on major cases of national interest, the Police relies on the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) in tracking bandits.
Multiple reliable sources had confided in Sunday PUNCH, that the breakdown was caused by downtime to non-subscription and failure to engage the relevant company to carry out system upgrade, among other challenges.
The government of President Goodluck Jonathan had procured over N11 billion sophisticated key tracking equipment for deployment by the Nigeria Police, the State Security Service (SSS) and the Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT).
In August 31, 2010, less than six months after he became Acting President, Jonathan awarded an approximately N6 billion contract to an Israeli-owned but Abuja-based security firm, V & V Nigeria Limited, for the “Procurement of strategic GSM Tracking System for the Nigeria Police Force and expansion/upgrade of the existing system with the DSS.”
The project, awarded to the contractor by the Ministry of Police Affairs, was jointly hosted by the Nigeria Police and Nigeria Communication Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), under the Nigeria Police Reform Programme.
Less than two months after, October 21, 2010, another N2.61 billion contract was awarded by the same Ministry of Police Affairs “for the procurement of Strategic GSM Tracking and Interception Systems for the Department of State Services, under the Nigeria Police Reform”.
Another contract, was also awarded to a British security firm, Gamma TSE Limited, which, according to the information on its website, “manufactures highly specialized surveillance vehicles and integrated surveillance systems, helping government agencies collect data and communicate it to key decision-makers for timely decisions to be made.”
In the first six months of this year, at least 2,943 people have been abducted across the country, the period that the tracking equipment has been down.
Experts have noted that the use of mobile devices by kidnappers to negotiate ransoms makes it possible for law enforcement agencies to determine the movements of the cell phone owners.
Even if users have their location services, cellular data and Wi-Fi disabled, tracking system enables law enforcement agencies to have access to the technology that can determine the location of a mobile device at a specified time.
A source said that the equipment tracking system became operational during the tenure of former Inspector General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase but there are indications that even the subscription for the equipment has elapsed and no new money has paid for the equipment subscription.
The result is that the Police has to rely on the DSS and the ONSA.
Said a source, “From what I gathered, subscription fees are meant to be paid yearly but you won’t believe that the police have not paid since 2015. Initially, the company gave us a grace period but they have now cut off the police completely. We now rely solely on DSS and NSA office. It’s a terrible situation and it has worsened the insecurity in the country. The Police Trust Fund promised to help but we have not seen any action yet.”
But another source noted: “You know this thing is technology just like computer. So we do upgrades from time to time. A lot of people on the field don’t even understand how it works. It is undergoing an upgrade because you have new features coming in from time to time. There are new technologies that you have to update to enhance their capacity.
“We have some new equipment which we need to adjust so they can link together. Some are still working. It is not as if all components are shut. That is what is happening.”
Out of the about 2,943 people in Nigeria who have been abducted across the country in the last six months, at least 800 are students. The statistics shows that 348 students are still in captivity, including the 121 students of Bethel Baptist School, Kaduna.
The Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a project of the Council on Foreign Relations‘ Africa programme, which documents and maps violence in Nigeria, says that the 800 students doesn’t include the 344 schoolchildren of Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, and 80 pupils of Islamiyya School, Mahuta, both in Katsina State in December 2020.
Some of the notable mass school kidnappings of 2021 include the abduction of 279 schoolgirls of Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, Zamfara State on February 26; the kidnapping of 136 pupils of Salihu Tanko Islamiyya School, Tegina, Niger State on May 30; the abduction of 94 students of Federal Government College, Birnin Yauri, Kebbi State on June 17 and the latest abduction of 140 pupils of Bethel Baptist School, Kaduna, out of which 19 escaped.
About 39 students at the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Kaduna were kidnapped on March 11 while 23 students of Greenfield University, Kaduna were also taken on April 20.
According to the NST, between January and June 2021, the North-West had the highest number of abductions with 1, 405 cases reported. The North-Central witnessed 942 kidnappings while the North-East had 210. The South-South witnessed 140 cases of abductions while the South-West and the South-East recorded 169 and 77 respectively.
The local governments with the highest number of abductions were Rafi in Niger State (443), Talata Marafa in Zamfara State (317) and Shiroro in Niger State (225). Maru in Zamfara State recorded 195 abductions while Kajuru in Kaduna State witnessed 145 kidnappings within the period.
According to NST, Niger State had the highest number of abductions at 795 followed by Zamfara State which witnessed 523 kidnappings. Kaduna had the third-highest number of abductions at 479 while Katsina recorded 289. Borno and Kebbi states recorded 115 and 103 cases respectively while Oyo had 63.
According to the data, the month of June recorded the highest number of abductions at 1, 344 followed by February which had 709 cases.
Major part of this story first appeared in PUNCH, https://punchng.com/major-police-tracking-equipment-down-detectives-struggle-to-trace-bandits-others/