A robotics, software and Artificial Intelligence (AI) expert, Dr. Chinemelu Ezeh, has said AI and robotics have the potential to revolutionise industries and tackle security challenges in the country.
In a chat with journalists in Abuja, yesterday, the United Kingdom-trained international expert called on Nigeria to leverage AI to boost productivity in critical sectors of the nation’s economy.
The technology, he said, will help in the financial, health and security sectors.
According to Ezeh, by leveraging AI, Nigeria’s intelligence agencies can gain accurate and exact knowledge of criminals, their modus operandi, funding sources and collaborators.
His words: “Imagine if you have a smartphone and then you have a listening system that before you enter the car, it is on. And it is listening for words around. And if you say a special phrase, it will automatically detect all your sensitive information and alert the security agencies where you are. This is one of the things that AI can do.
“A lot of times in ‘one chance,’ it is your phone. They want to transfer money from your phone. But if you don’t have anything on you, you are more or less safe.
“That is something that can work. It is not a solution that you see in the West, because they don’t have this problem. But it is something that we will have to make for ourselves.”
Abuja, Nigeria’s seat of power, still grapples with an unabated surge in kidnapping, banditry, robbery, pick-pocketing, carjacking, ‘one chance,’ ritual killings and other forms of criminalities.
Ezeh explained that rather than deploy heavy security equipment like helicopters to tackle banditry and insurgency, light and cheaper tools like drones can be used.
Meanwhile, more facts emerged, yesterday, on the attack at the Imo correctional centre farm settlement.
Fielding questions from newsmen in Owerri, the state Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the centre, Goodluck Ibegbulam, disclosed that 24 gunmen stormed the settlement in motorcycles, disclosing that each rider carried two passengers, whisking the seven inmates from the farm at about 05:30 a.m. to yet to be determined destination. They also kidnapped the farm settlement head alongside other inmates.
Ibegbulam informed that the centre was working with the sister security agencies to get the inmates returned to the centre, to complete their jail terms.
He also hinted about the killing of the police officer attached to the Senator representing Imo North Senatorial District, Patrick Ndubueze, at his ancestral home.
