One of the major approaches to combating crimes in modern society is the deployment of technology. But about 14 years after a $460 million contract for the installation of Closed-Circuit Television Cameras (CCTVs) in Abuja, was awarded, several probes to unravel the failed execution or salvage the project have gone futile, BRIDGET CHIEDU ONOCHIE reports.

In 2010, the Federal Government obtained a $460 million loan from China’s EXIM Bank for the installation of Closed-Circuit Television Cameras (CCTVs) in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to assist security agencies in checkmating rising insecurity. But 14 years after, the initiative has not only been aborted, but circumstances surrounding it have remained unclear, while several probes and public outcry have failed to resolve the puzzle.

Midwifed in 2008 during the short-lived administration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the contract was not awarded until 2010, when President Goodluck Jonathan was in office.

The project was designed to have five components, including the Global Operating Network Architecture (GOTA); Video Surveillance Subsystem (VSS) also known as the CCTV component; Video Conferences System; e-Policing Subsystem, and Emergency Collation Response Subsystem. Summarily, the project was designed to provide audio, video, and data information to aid the police, and other security agencies in combating crimes.

Awarded to a Chinese construction firm – ZTE Communications, the CCTV cameras were to come with 37 switch rooms, MW backbone, 37 coalition emergency response systems, 38 video conference subsystems, 37 e-police systems, six emergency communication vehicles, and 1.5 million lines for subscription.

The contract terms included the payment of 15 per cent of the total sum by the Nigerian government, while the remaining 85 per cent was to be paid by the EXIM Bank for the project. The repayment period spanned 10 years and at the prevailing interest rate.

This much was confirmed by a former Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, who admitted in 2015 – five years after the award of the contract (when she appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Finance) that Nigeria was already repaying her part of the loan.

“We are servicing the loan, but on the project, we will have to ask the Federal Capital Territory Authority because the project was deployed in the FCT. I have no information on the status of the CCTV,” she had said.

Among other things, surveillance cameras are installed to help prevent, as well as detect crimes. In modern cities where functional surveillance cameras are installed, they are located in public places to provide evidence to relevant enforcement agencies at crime scenes and to facilitate prompt detection, and apprehension of perpetrators.

But how Abuja, fashioned after some of the world’s modern cities, has failed to replicate this, and excel in its responsibility to protect lives and property still leaves many bemused.

According to experts, the 2011 bombing of the United Nations building that resulted in the death of 21 persons, the recent rise in cab robbery better known as “one chance,” rising cases of kidnapping, and other forms of criminality in the city would have been minimised, or at least speedily resolved if surveillance cameras contract had been executed.

Unfortunately, criminals are now leveraging the absence of security facilities to operate with impunity in the nation’s capital, which some now describe as an emerging haven for criminals. Without a doubt, what is happening in Abuja, speaks volumes of the condition of other states of the federation as far as crime prevention is concerned.

While the CCTV Camera project might not be the only mega-million naira project that has failed, the prevailing security situation, however, makes the project indispensable if the government is sincere in tackling the insecurity.

The inability of previous National Assembly’s investigation panels to make public, reports of various probes into the project has forced many Nigerians to resign themselves to fate.

This was even more highlighted by the recent kidnap in the Galadimawa area of the city of Chris Agidi, a legislative aide to the senator representing Delta North, Ned Nwoko. Agidi was later found dead, and that incident re-amplified the urgent need for surveillance cameras to be mounted not only in the FCT but across the country.

In the wake of the death of his aide, Senator Nwoko lamented that Abuja was under siege, and efforts by security agents to reverse the trend have failed to pay off.

Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, while contributing to the debate, expressed worries over rising incidents of kidnapping in the FCT, and expressed the urgent need for the Senate to take decisive steps towards addressing the issue.  One of the steps, Senator Adamu Aliero insisted, was to revisit the contract awarded for the installation of the CCTV cameras.

“It is a shame; and a national embarrassment for kidnappings to be happening in the FCT. The National Assembly approved over N1 trillion for security agencies to fight insecurity in Nigeria,” he said.

Based on this, the Senate charged the FCT minister to revisit the CCTV contract and make the contractor accountable, while stressing the importance of installing security cameras within specific areas in the FCT.

A security analyst, Chikwendu Anazodo, expressed worries over the government’s seeming inability to curb insecurity in the country, as well as, hold to account, perpetrators of such dastardly acts. He noted that security surveillance facilities are still lacking in the FCT.

He said: “I am still baffled that we don’t have CCTVs in Abuja. It doesn’t make any sense. No CCTV cameras in the nation’s capital? This is despite the various attempts by the previous government to get it fixed.

Anazodo described as embarrassing, the fact that the police and the Federal Capital Territory management were aware of dark spots and some flash points within the city, and even advised residents to avoid those places, especially at night, yet, nothing tangible has been done so far to secure those places.

“In advanced countries, you will see cameras installed by the government and private individuals. When they track a criminal from point A to B and C and cannot trace what happened in point D, the review of points A, B and C will give them an idea of what must have happened at point D. In the case of Abuja, there are no cameras at all to detect anything even within the so-called flashpoints. It is very embarrassing.

“Recently, the police in one of the provinces in Canada asked residents to leave their car keys on their cars that are parked outside their homes so that when thieves come to rob, they can easily take the car without having to come in and in the process, harm them. They believed that it was better for the thieves to go with cars because there are facilities in place to trace them and recover stolen items.

“In Nigeria, the police is warning citizens to look for advanced technologies with which to secure their cars because thieves have master keys to open certain models of vehicles,” he said.  The implication of such advice according to Anazodo was an outright admittance of lack of capacity to track car snatchers in the country.

“The police are telling us that we are on our own; that they cannot secure us and our property. It is shameful and shows a lack of commitment on the part of security agencies to have spent so much in fighting insecurity without considering certain necessary equipment such as CCTV cameras.”

According to him, no modern city talks about curbing insecurity without thinking of essential security equipment such as surveillance cameras.

“They are not ready to install equipment as simple as CCTV cameras. But why will anybody bother to do so when successive administrations have embezzled loans obtained for the cameras without being questioned or punished? He asked.

Anazodo also joined the call for the revisit of the aborted $460 million contract while insisting that previous probe reports by the National Assembly be made public wondering why they’ve been kept away from the public till date.

“The CCTV project should be probed and those found culpable of embezzling the funds meant for it should be prosecuted and made to refund the money,” Anazodo added.

For Ifeanyi Nwoko, a public affairs analyst, once criminals escape scenes of crime in Nigeria, it is often difficult to track them hence the compelling need for CCTV cameras in the FCT.

Nwoko, a victim of car snatching in Abuja, regretted that security agencies whose duty it is to protect lives and property have failed the people massively.

On what is responsible for the failure of past sessions of the National Assembly to make public, reports of probes into the contract, a certified protection officer and security analyst, Mr Frank Oshanugor, alleged that the majority of those conducting the probe may be linked to the contract one way or the other.

He recalled that a similar project for the installation of 10,000 CCTV cameras was awarded in Lagos State “but all of a sudden, everything went down the drain and no one could give account of it till now.

“It is difficult to make the report of investigations public because those who perhaps would have asked for this money may have had their hands soiled. Nigeria is a place where corruption has tentacles.

“The man you think is innocent is in one way or the other, linked to one corrupt practice or the other. So, when the person finds himself in such a probe committee, do you think he will do any magic when his hand has been soiled already?”

To address security challenges in the FCT and indeed across the country, he insisted that leaders should shun selfishness and think more of the country as far as national security is concerned. “The only way to curb insecurity is for the people to shun corruption and think about the country. The leaders must overhaul themselves,” Oshanugor said.