JBTF trains law enforcement agencies on digital, mobile and computer forensics

The Joint Border Task Force (JBTF) sponsored by the British High Commission has partnered with First Digital and Techno-Law Forensics Co. Limited to provide a 5-day certification training on digital, mobile and computer forensics for three arms of the law enforcement agencies in Nigeria specifically the EFCC, NDLEA, and NAPTIP who are members of the Joint Border Task Force for border control in the country.

The objective of the training programme, according to Dr. Peter Olu Olayiwola, president, Computer Forensics Institute, Nigeria (CFIN)/ CEO First Digital and Techno-Law Forensics Co. Ltd is to provide digital, mobile and computer forensics training to the law enforcement officers to enable them gather digital evidence in addition to other evidences they have been used to providing in the prosecution of cases in their various agencies in the past.

“As we know today, digital evidence provides over 85-90 percent or more of all types of evidences that are useful in the prosecution of crimes throughout the world today and this is an area of gap in the law enforcement system of Nigeria and that is what the British High Commission has seen and has decided to provide to the three agencies so that their officers working in the Joint Border Task Force can become more effective and more efficient and be able to go to court and present digital evidence in addition to physical evidences that they have been used to providing in the courts in the prosecution of their cases’’, Olayiwola said.

Further Olayiwola said the training has become necessary as Nigeria has all the legal framework necessary to use digital or electronic evidence.“We have the Evidence Act 2011 as amended which admits digital evidences in the court. We also have the Cybercrime Act 2015 which now criminalizes a lot of acts committed within the cyberspace. So that is the reason and also Nigeria being a hub to Europe and other places, having this type of skill which the training programme offers will help our patrol teams in the execution of their duties”, he said.

Goddard Dean, Immigration Liaison Manager /JBTF, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, British High Commission in explaining the relevance of the training to the agencies present said that in conducting their investigations that more of those investigations were done digitally and what they were trying to do was to improve the NDLEA, NAPTIP and the EFCC’s capability to use digital and computer forensics evidence in investigations and to present evidence in court effectively.

Mentor for the JBTF project, Goddard said the outfit exchanges perspectives from the UK to maintain best practice and try to move case work and investigation to professional and more credible level.

“We are working in partnership to cut the time it takes from the initial detection of a crime to prosecution. In addition to delivering training on digital and computer forensics we are introducing modern processes such as the video recording of interviews with suspects and witnesses and producing typewritten witness statements. We are working with the Criminal Justice sector to ensure that these methods are accepted by the courts”, he said.