Oghenevwede Ohwovoriole in Abuja
The federal government is to map and digitalise police stations across the country for better and effective policing.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani stated this after the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the government and the Police Trust Fund, (PTF) on Wednesday, in Abuja.
He said, “As we all know, our president has invested significantly in trying to drive our economy forward. Some of the difficult decisions are solely for the purpose of trying to give us a future which is more productive for all of us. But without a proper police system, I know we all know the implications.
“With this partnership, we will end up doing something that I really like, which is map all the police stations in the country and be able to see how far they are from the point of presence of fiber optic network, which we call it POP in technology.
“For me, I think that is special because most of the time, these resources exist, but we don’t know that they exist. So, you may find a significant number of the police stations within reach of a fiber-based connectivity. So we first need to start with that and get that right.
“GBB (Galaxy Backbone) has fibre across Nigeria, which has been paid for by the government. If we do this mapping, we can then see which are the police stations already close to this point of presence and how do we connect them.
“That cable is going to have what we call the point of presence in every ward of this country (over 7,000). If we do this mapping right, we can influence the design of that network to even say, perhaps, the point of presence should be close to the police station.”
On how the project will be funded, he said, funds and support are being provided by the World Bank and the European Union
Tijani also noted that with the project, people will no longer have the issue of using an interpreter at the police stations.
“So we see a future where you go to a police station, you want to give your report, you just speak to a machine that captures what you’re saying and transcribes into a statement. And it can then play it back to user that you actually hear what you said before you then sign. I think there’s that fantastic opportunity.
“We also thought about capacity building for our police officers as well to ensure that they can use that. So this is a robust partnership,” the minister said.
On how long the project will take, he said, “it will take probably the next 12 months, but we’re not going to deliver everything at the end of the 12 months. It’s going to be in phases.”
Providing further insight, he said, “the mapping is actually the longest part because it’s a technical assistant on that project bridge. So, we have to go through the process of putting that out, announcing for someone to apply that or do the GIS.”
In his remarks, the Executive Secretary of the PTF, Mohamed Sheidu said the event transcended just signing of a MoU.
“This is not just a signing of MoU. This is a partnership that I believe personally has been long in the waiting. We are trying to modernise the Nigeria Police Force.
“This is a long awaited partnership that should and would bring out a lot of fruitful things. Because we see that we’re trying to move towards the smart police stations, and there’s no way we can be able to achieve this without this partnership,” he noted.
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