Boston – By Emman Okuns –
Nigerian government has been advised to embark on a national registration exercise involving fingerprints for all citizens and everyone living in the country as a critical component of security measures to fight terrorism, kidnapping and other crimes in the county.
Edo United for Homeland Empowerment, a human rights group, with headquarters in Boston, made the call last weekend following a crucial meeting where members of the organization reviewed the outcome of the recently concluded Nigeria Security Summit in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
It would be recalled that on August 8, 2014, Huhuoline.com sponsored the Nigeria Security Summit to address the lingering issues of security problems in Nigeria.
The forum attracted experts from various fields of human endeavor, including representatives from human rights organizations, such as Edo United for Homeland Empowerment and members of the civil society.
Some Nigerian government officials, including the National Security Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan, Retired Col. Mohammed Dasuki Sambo and the Nigeria Ambassador to the United States, Professor Ade Adefuye were also in attendance.
As a reflection on that forum, Edo United for Homeland empowerment believes that the summit achieved its aim as participants had the opportunity to speak their minds and ask questions towards finding solutions to Nigeria’s security problems.
The group, in a communique issued at the end of its meeting acknowledged the efforts of the federal government, as outlined by the National Security Advisers, Dasuki Sambo and urged the government to explore every other effective avenue, such as high technology in dealing with the security challenges in the country.
In the communique, signed by Mr. Frank Ekhator, Barr. Dickson Iyawe and Mrs. Omolayo Omoruyi-Ukhuedoba, president, vice president and secretary respectively, the organization noted:
“Today’s Nigeria complex and evolving security threats require modern intelligence-driven solutions and forensic investigation to keep pace or stay ahead of sworn enemies of the nation.”
The burden of physically protecting a Nation, it continued “is becoming daunting as terrors and other criminal elements are growing more sophisticated by the day; and without reengineering our approach to crime prevention and control, there is no way the Nigerian government can win the war against insurgency and other crimes. “
The group described the recent call on the Kaduna State House of Assembly by concerned Arewa citizens, to craft a Bill requiring the registration of Southerners in the North, and an earlier agitation by some Southeast Governors, calling for the registration of Northerners in their domains due to the Boko Haram insurgency as myopic.
The human rights group posited that what Nigeria needs right now is not a decision or action based on polarization or divisiveness, rather concerted efforts of all Nigerians and government to fight the common enemies in the entire territory of the country.
“A terrorist threat in the North must be seen as a threat to the south and vise versa – something needing a collective solution for our collective security as a people,” the organization said.
It warned against ethnic, sectional, political and religious-based inflammatory statements at this stage of the nation’s predicament.
The organization noted that part of Nigeria’s inability to fight crime is the lack of a national database which is critical to detecting criminal activities.
“Even the presence of the U.S. Special Force in Nigeria today has done little to change the insecurity in the country because we lack basic security infrastructure, including National Database.
Nigeria is overdue for a National Fingerprint Database to match extracted fingerprint from crime scene, but this cannot be done without National registration of citizens and other people living in the country.”
Concerned Arewa Citizens and Southeast Governors’ agitation for National Registration is on course, but must be devoid of selfish, sectional or ethnic undertones and rather implemented nation-wide to achieve the desired results of ensuring national security.
“That America and many other Western Nations are able to fight crime or provide adequate security to their citizens despite numerous challenges they face on daily basis underscores the importance of crime fighting technology.
Today’s dangerous world requires proactive application of relevant advanced technological equipment and not waiting for crime to happen before responding,” the organization advised.
Edo United noted that from research, there is a wide range of new innovations of this technology that have applications for crime investigation, prevention and control, adding that Fingerprint evidence is becoming more powerful as it can now be linked up electronically with the ones on database.
The organization referred to the new Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) with the capability to track criminals even years after they committed their crimes, identify culprits by searching through thousands of fingerprints on database to match a perpetuator’s latent print taken from crime scene within two hours of crime commission.
The group quoted Debbie L.Benningfield, a fingerprint expert who has been using AFIS technology to solve crime mystery since it was developed, as saying: investigators “are solving cases that were previously unsolved, and by getting bad guys off the streets we are preventing crimes from happening.”
It said that for the war on terror and other crimes to succeed the government must have the political will to confront the enemies both from within and without and observed that this appear to be lacking at the moment.
It is this lack of political will, the group believed has prevented the government t from being able to assemble a potent Strike Force to rout out a rag-tag insurgency, and kidnappers that are making life unbearable for Nigerian citizens and visitors.
Edo United Regretted that despite the nation’s enormous security problems, it has not fully engaged or embraced the use of modern IT-based Security Digital Video Surveillance to fight criminal activities, including terrorism and kidnapping.
According to the organization, human security is a critical component and center-piece of good political agenda, but that for a nation to grow and be stable, the protection of citizens must be the strategic concern of Government.
“Over the years technological equipment has had profound influence on the way the war against crime is carried out in developed Nations; without crime fighting technology, police and other law enforcement agencies can never be effective; countries, such as America and Britain, are not crime-free, but law enforcement agencies in those countries have been able to utilize high technology-based devices, including Digital Video Surveillance to protect their citizens, deter and unravel crime,” the organization remarked.
