Men from Zone 16 of the Nigeria Police Force have arrested a fake medical doctor, Doubara Esamasuode, operating without a licence in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.

In a statement signed and released on Wednesday by the state Police Public Relations Officer, Emonena Gunn, the arrest was described as “a display of unwavering commitment to upholding the rule of law and ensuring public safety.”

The statement noted that Esamasuode was operating under St. Maximilian Medical Centre, located at Winners Junction in the Etegwe area of Yenagoa. It added that his arrest was based on credible intelligence provided by the zone’s Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Paul Omata.

Items recovered during a search of the medical centre included injection syringes, drugs, hospital equipment, photographs of his fake convocation, hospital folders, and 200 copies of images of an ultrasound report.

  

The suspect confessed to “various offences, including being a fake medical doctor, operating an illegal medical facility, forgery, and impersonation.”

The AIG reiterated his personnel’s dedication to protecting the lives and property of citizens within his jurisdiction and the nation at large.

“This parade serves as a testament to the ongoing work being done to maintain law and order and instil a sense of security within our environment.” 

The statement said the arrest “sends a clear message that criminal activities will not be tolerated,” adding that “the investigation is ongoing, and he will be charged to court in due course.”

The police have called on the public to continue cooperating with law enforcement agencies by providing timely information that can aid in the investigation and apprehension of criminal elements.

• Soldiers kill nine terrorists in Kaduna shootout

Suspected Boko Haram terrorists struck afresh yesterday in Yobe State, attacking an Islamic school boarding facility where they dragged  out three students  from  bed and shot them dead.

One other was wounded.

Simultaneously, soldiers  killed nine suspected  terrorists during an encounter  in Kampani Doka and Rifigoro communities in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

Attacked  by Boko Haram yesterday was Faudiya School in Geidam Local Government Area about 180 kilometres from Damaturu,the state capital.

The school is owned  by the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), a Shiia sect.

The victims were named as Muhammadu Saleh (22 years), Ahmed Abdulrahman (21) and Abdullahi Adamu (21).

Sani Haruna (25) who was wounded  is currently receiving medical treatment.

Police spokesman in the state , Dungus Abdulkarim, a deputy superintendent of police, confirmed the attack.

His words: “It is confirmed, the divisional police headquarters at Geidam received the report this morning by a certain individual that there was an attack on a particular school,” Abdulkarim told TheCable.

“We mobilised our men, and they went there and evacuated three dead persons and one with a bullet wound and was admitted to the hospital.

“The attackers came on a motorcycle, about 10 of them, carrying deadly arms such as AK-47 rifles and other items.

“They entered the school and took four of the students and killed three instantly and injured one person.

“The information we received from one of the injured persons was that the attackers invaded and told them they were there to abduct them to the forest and kill them, but they did not want to carry any load; in that regard, ‘we will just kill you here’.

“We are still investigating to find out the perpetrators and why the attack on the school.

“The attack occurred at exactly 3:45 to 4:00 am today. The school is a day and boarding school. There is a quarter in the school.”

Boko Haram has repeatedly attacked educational institutions especially western-oriented schools in Borno and Yobe states.

On February 25, 2014, they invaded Federal Government College, Buni Yadi in Yobe State killing 59 boys and  setting  fire on 24  buildings in the school compound.

The  attack came  overnight when students were in their dormitories.

Two months later, precisely on the night of April 14-15,the terrorists invaded the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State and abducted over 250 girls.

Many of the girls are yet to be found although some have managed to either escape or rescued by troops after years in captivity.

Some of the rescued girls said they were married out to fighters of Boko Haram and bore them children.

Amina Ali, one of the missing girls , was found in May 2016. She said six of the girls had died.

Soldiers kill nine terrorists in Kaduna shootout

However, nine other suspected terrorists operating  in Kampani Doka and Rifigoro communities in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State ran out of luck after engaging soldiers in a shootout.

They were all gunned down.

The soldiers were on offensive operations in the terrorists’ stronghold near Kampani Doka when the confrontation ensued.

 “In a shootout that lasted for hours, the gallant troops subdued the criminal elements with superior firepower, thereby neutralising seven of the terrorists,” the army said.

“The troops recovered three AK-47 rifles, eight AK-47 magazines (four fully loaded with 120 rounds of 7.62mm Special), a magazine carrier and motorcycles.

“Other items include three mobile cell phones, two Baofeng communication radios, and three pairs of civil clothes,’’ it said.

[TheNation]

Why we celebrated Bichi’s exit – DSS officers

The reasons the immediate past Director-General of the Department of State Services, Yusuf Bichi, and the DG of the National Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Abubakar, resigned from their positions have been revealed.

Sources within the Presidency told Saturday PUNCH that President Bola Tinubu and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, questioned the intelligence gathering mechanisms of the two agencies following the violent nature of the #EndBadGovernance protests in some northern states and the seizure of three presidential aircraft in France.

While Bichi was held responsible for lack of functional intelligence on the protest, Abubakar was reportedly queried for the NIA’s inability to have reports ahead of the seizure of the jets by a Chinese company, Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Limited.

A French court had sanctioned the seizure of three Nigerian presidential jets, including a newly purchased Airbus, amid a legal dispute between Zhongshan and the Ogun State Government.

The #EndBadGovernance protest, which began on August 1, turned violent in Kano, Gombe, Yobe, Borno and Bauchi states while demonstrations in the South-West were peaceful.

During the protests in some northern states, public and private facilities were destroyed, while hoodlums looted shops and caused mayhem. This led to the imposition of curfews in Kano, Bauchi, and Plateau states.

The protest was driven by widespread hardship resulting from the removal of fuel subsidy, electricity tariff hike and the high cost of living, among other issues.

Bichi, who hails from Kano State, where widespread destruction and looting occurred, was appointed on September 14, 2018, by former President Muhammadu Buhari.

Abubakar, from Katsina State, was also appointed by Buhari on January 10, 2018.

According to credible sources, Tinubu and Ribadu were embarrassed by the turn of events on the seizure of the presidential jets and the #EndBadGovernance demonstrations.

“The seizure of the presidential jets and violent nature of the #EndBadGovernance protest embarrassed the President nationally and internationally.

“The President was displeased with the NIA and DSS bosses. This was why he requested the resignation of the two security chiefs,” said one of the sources.

Another source told Saturday PUNCH that Bichi and Ribadu had been having a running battle before the protest, with the fallout from the northern demonstrations serving as the final straw.

He stated, “The former DSS DG and the NSA boss had been on bad terms for some time. Their issues escalated to the point that Bichi was unable to meet the President for a while. The Presidency finally had a valid reason to dismiss him due to the #EndBadGovernance protest.”

Abubakar announced his resignation on Saturday, August 24, after meeting with President Tinubu.

In contrast, Bichi’s resignation was announced in a statement by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, on Monday, August 26.

Why we celebrated Bichi’s exit – DSS officers

Bichi’s resignation elicited reactions from DSS staff and the public.

Some DSS officers, who spoke to Saturday PUNCH on condition of anonymity, described his exit as ‘freedom from unprofessionalism’.

The DSS officers listed Bichi’s alleged misconduct to include undue interference in the service’s operations by his wife and son, Yusuf Bichi.

A video of some DSS staff members allegedly celebrating Bichi’s resignation surfaced online immediately after his departure.

However, an X user, Sanusi Jibrin, said the clip was recorded at the Kogi State DSS office, where personnel were celebrating Ajayi’s appointment, as he was a former director at the state command.

A DSS officer, however, said personnel of the agency were happy with his removal.

“We believed his regime was a punishment for us. He impeded the career advancement of many officers by extending the service years of those due to retire. Some senior officers, who were due for retirement in 2021 and 2022 were retained in the service,” he stated.

Another officer alleged that Bichi was indifferent to the welfare of workers.

“The Federal Government increased our salary by 40 per cent, but there was no implementation. We were earning more than the police before, but the police are now earning more than us because they implemented their 40 per cent increment. However, there was a proposal to increase our salary by 25 per cent this year, but it has yet to be realised,” the officer said.

Speaking on the recruitment of personnel, another secret agent described Bichi’s recruitment as nepotistic.

“Bichi’s recruitments were arbitrary and lopsided. Three different training sessions have been conducted for some people we didn’t know when they were recruited this year alone. Most of the newly recruited personnel are northerners.

“His first recruitment in 2019 brought in either 420 or 450 persons from Bichi Local Government Area in Kano alone. In the history of the service, 450 was the maximum recruitment we ever had before Bichi, but he recruited 1,000 personnel at once.

“There was no southerner among the national directors and deputy directors at the headquarters until January this year when he was directed by the Presidency following a petition. His wife is another issue; she abused her husband’s office. His son, too, was power drunk.

“Just two weeks ago, his wife slapped a DSS director in a northern state. She also slapped at least two deputy directors at airports.”

Tweeps also criticised the former DSS boss, accusing him of allowing his family to abuse power because of his position.

The publisher of Daily Nigerian, Jafaar Jafaar, while commenting on X, said Bichi turned the DSS into a “graveyard of career aspirations.”

“He lowered the recruitment bar, removed the multi-layer screening process to recruit personnel who couldn’t even pass the Halogen Security aptitude test. Bichi arguably recruited the highest number of Cotonou ‘graduates’ into the service. He wilfully extended the tenure of some retired directors in his good book for years, killing the ambitions of the aspiring directors. He allowed his wife to lord over the service, influencing recruitment, promotion and discipline,” he stated.

Jafaar alleged that Bichi’s wife oppressed people with “a superfluity of everything at the expense of public funds,” adding that she moved around in a long motorcade, harassing motorists.

“She was a stormy petrel, who was majorly in the news for either assaulting her tailor for failing to meet a deadline or picking a fight with opposition politicians. His impudent, spoiled brat son shrugged off public criticism to gleefully display a fleet of luxury cars on social media.

“At the expense of public funds, he has a number of DSS operatives giving him cover at football arena, nightclub and political campaign rallies.”

Our correspondent, while checking Bichi’s son, Yusuf’s X page, saw a video clip of when he rode in a long convoy of security operatives, suspected to be men of the DSS.

In 2023, the Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf, had also claimed that Bichi’s wife threatened to prevent him from becoming the state governor.

The governor, in a viral video, also alleged that the woman abused and insulted him before preventing him from boarding a commercial plane.

The Executive Director of the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, Debo Adeniran, stated that the alleged celebration of Bichi’s resignation by some staff members did not necessarily mean he was a good or bad leader.

According to him, workers do not like disciplined bosses who insist that everybody should do the right thing and reject corruption.

“I’m not saying the former DG is good because we could see a lot of loopholes in intelligence gathering and security issues.

“That staff and colleagues are celebrating his exit, it’s neither here nor there. It could be that he is very, very strict or it could be that he has not been taking care of their welfare and whatever.

“It could also be that he didn’t allow them to do their work the way they wanted to do it. And maybe his exit will allow them to prove their mettle, that they could work better than they were doing under him”, he added.

Illegal arrests, violation of court orders

Under the leadership of Bichi, the DSS was involved in many controversial operations, including the arrest of a former Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

Emefiele was arrested on June 9, 2023, and was only arraigned more than a month later.

On 25 July, despite a Federal High Court order granting him bail and ordering his transfer to a correctional centre, the DSS re-arrested him, with operatives reportedly assaulting a prison official at the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos, in the process.

A former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, was also a victim. He was arrested on August 3, 2019, just days before a planned protest tagged #RevolutionNow against “bad governance”.

Although released on bail on December 5, Sowore was re-arraigned on December 6.

The DSS attempted to re-arrest him inside the courtroom but were prevented by his supporters; however, they succeeded in re-arresting him outside the court.

Another case involved a citizen Anthony Okolie, who was detained by the DSS for 10 weeks for purchasing and using an MTN SIM card previously used and discarded by Hanan Buhari, the daughter of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

Also, the Regional Editor of The Conversation Africa, Adejuwon Soyinka, was arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos last Sunday and detained for hours before his release. However, his passport was confiscated.

Efforts to reach Bichi proved unsuccessful as of the time of filing this report.

[Punch]

•Fault not from our end —NCC
•Politicians used tracking devices for mistresses, and enemies instead of criminals —Retd Senior Police Officer

74-year-old Emir of Gobir in Gawata town of Sokoto state, Alhaji Isah Muhammad Bawa was abducted by bandits on Sabon Birni road last month alongside his biological son on his way to his native town of Sabon Birni, near the border with Niger, after attending a meeting in Sokoto. His abductors demanded N1b ransom while they tortured and dehumanised him.

The traditional ruler, in a viral video, was shown tied up by his abductors, pleading with the state government, his friends, brothers and sisters to pay the ransom to the bandits for his release. When he couldn’t pay the ransom after about three weeks in captivity, his abductors eventually killed him and when his family members requested his corpse, the bandits again demanded N60 million and six motorbikes as ransom.

The incident triggered a nationwide outrage as people expressed shock at the inability of the security agencies to rescue the abducted monarch as negotiation for his ransom was going on until he was eventually killed by his abductors.

According to a concerned citizen whose reaction trended online throughout last week, “all these were going on, yet we have, DSS, NIA, EFCC, ICPC, Army, Navy, Air force and other paramilitary agencies, we have ministers of communication, telecommunications, information and others that have access to service providers. In fact, we have Minister Bosun Tijani who they hyped and over-hyped as a computer guru.

The kidnappers were discussing on the phone with the family of the kidnapped emir just as they’ve been doing all over the country. So if we can’t track calls made by kidnappers and know their location in this modern era, what’s the use of communication, telecommunications, information and other nonsense ministries?”

From the north to the South, the east, and the west of the country, the story is the same. Thousands of the citizens have been kidnapped with their abductors communicating with their families using mobile phones to negotiate for ransom. Yet, the security agencies have been unable to track down the kidnappers.

Recently in Delta state, a young man who had gone to his farmland in Onitsah-Ugbo was kidnapped. In this case, Saturday Vanguard gathered that during the interaction between the kidnappers and relatives of the young man, the kidnappers demanded N18 million. Unfortunately, after payment of the ransom, relatives found the abducted man dead at the designated point where they were to pick him up. To date, his abductors are yet to be tracked through the phone used.

Also, on Thursday, August 15, 2024, 20 medical students from the University of Maiduguri and the University of Jos were abducted along the Otukpo-Enugu highway on their way to the Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental Students (FECAMDS) Annual Convention in Enugu State. For several days before their eventual release, the kidnappers were communicating with their relatives, demanding a ransom of N50 million for their release. Although the medical students were released after spending nine days in captivity, with security agents claiming that no ransom was paid, the larger concern remains the apparent lapses in detecting the location of the kidnappers and arresting them.

The fact that the students were held captive for some time without the authorities being able to track down the kidnappers raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the security agencies’ intelligence gathering and response mechanisms. The sheer audacity of the kidnappers, striking in the full glare of other road users, is not only a stark reminder of the utter disregard for human dignity that has become the hallmark of these criminal elements but also an indictment of our security apparatus.. Many Nigerians are of the view that the focus should shift from the ransom aspect to addressing the glaring gaps in the security system that allowed the kidnappers to operate undetected and unchecked.

Launch of the tracking device

The Nigeria Police Force, being the leading security agency in Nigeria, launched Intelligence-led Policing in 2015, with the installation of a tracking device that was installed by the then-Inspector-General of Police office, Solomon Arase.

Real-time tracking devices like GPS trackers or cell phone trackers provide critical information during an investigation, such as the location where a kidnapping occurred or the route taken by the kidnappers. There was also the Operation unit code-named Intelligence Response Team (still in operation) which monitored the kidnappers’ movements in real-time, with the information from the device, thereby helping them stay one step ahead. This device also helped investigators analyze the locations and patterns of calls made by the kidnappers, the routes, and potential safe houses.

In addition, the device provided valuable evidence, such as call records, location data and communication patterns, to build a strong case against the kidnappers.

The device helped in arresting many kidnappers through calls made from their dens while negotiating for ransom. One such arrest was that of the five kidnappers of former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae, who was taken captive by the herdsmen on September 21, 2015, during his 77th birthday. In this case, five of the kidnappers came to pick up the N5 million ransom in Suleja, Niger State.
One of the senior police officers who effected the breakthrough told Saturday Vanguard that; “immediately the kidnappers removed the SIM card used to negotiate, we knew where they were and intercepted them at the last bridge to Minna. The ransom money they collected was still in the boot and the SIM card.

Five of them were arrested. The motorcycle they used to convey Chief Olu Falae was retrieved. The N5 million ransom was marked by the bank. They removed only N100,000 from it. The kidnappers were sentenced to life imprisonment”.

What went wrong

Asked what went wrong with the system put in place to monitor the locations of kidnappers and interception of calls for prompt arrest and rescue of abducted victims, the retired senior officer attributed it to the priority of successive Inspectors General of Police.

His words: “The priority of successive IGPs was quite different. Solomon Arase set up the platform when he was the IGP. It was a technical platform to track calls. It was mounted in the IGP’s office then and only one officer, who is now an AIG, had access to the technical platform. The Intelligence Response Team, IRT was supposed to be the operational wing that would work with the technical platform. When the technical team got information, it would pass it to IRT to go to the location and make an arrest. Drones and vehicles were bought for the operation.

“But successive IGPs who were analogues didn’t know what to do. They merged the technical platform and IRT. Instead of the platform being used for crime prevention, it became political. People in the National Assembly and Villa got hold of the platform and used it to track their enemies and mistresses.

For such a platform, you don’t give both the technical and the operational units to just one person who would be compromised by politicians. That was the beginning of the collapse of the platform. It requires someone with power and intelligence, someone of a strategic level who is keen on that line.

“This platform was supposed to be renewed and hooked up with the service provider. But that was never the priority of successive IGPs. They had money to pay for the accumulated subscription but they refused to pay. When you leave such a system for more than one year, it requires recalibration. This technology keeps evolving.

You can’t say something you set up today will be used the same way for 10 years without being upgraded. Before long, the system broke down, and the functionality of the Police tracking equipment began to diminish and subsequently went comatose.

The tracker, particularly, became non-functional due to non-subscription as well as failure to engage the relevant company to carry out required system upgrades. Due to the failure to pay subscription fees for about three years, and after a grace period had expired, the company overseeing its maintenance and upgrade decided to withdraw its services. This made it difficult to track bandits, kidnappers, and other forms of violent crimes”, he stated.

However, Saturday Vanguard gathered that the present IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, reactivated the tracking device. However, despite its reactivation, in addition to the tracking devices of the DSS and Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, kidnappers are still having their way without being tracked in many parts of the country. They are still not getting it right.

Lack of Participation

Further findings by Saturday Vanguard on the seeming indifference of security agents in the fight against kidnapping showed that some were deliberately withdrawing even when given directives. Interaction with most of them revealed that they were reluctant to go after the kidnappers because of the significant risks involved and the limited technology available to support their efforts.

Pursuing kidnappers, according to them, often requires venturing into dangerous forests and remote areas, where the risk of ambush, injury, or even death is high. Furthermore, they complained that policemen are often deployed to these high-risk missions without adequate resources, including specialized allowances, vehicles and equipment. One of them, an Inspector, said: “Policemen are frequently forced to spend days in the forest without proper support or infrastructure, relying on basic survival skills and makeshift arrangements to carry out their duties.”

Frustration

Many Rank and Files from different State Police Commands expressed frustration due to what they described as the lack of recognition and rewards for their hard work and dedication in combating kidnappings. They said that unless a policeman has connections with high-ranking officers, their efforts go unnoticed and unrewarded. One of them from the Edo State Police Command who was among those who rounded up kidnappers that attacked a sub-station of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, in Igueben, Edo State, in January 2023, where scores of passengers were abducted, lamented that they were edged out of the recent IGP awards.

He alleged that an officer who never participated in the operation that led to the arrest of the kidnappers and rescue of the victims took the shine off them.

Another Police Inspector from the Enugu State Police Command said, “Kidnapping is being politicized. The federal government should demonstrate the political will to address the issue instead of endangering the lives of security operatives. Its approach to tackling kidnapping has been inadequate and the lives of security personnel are being put at risk due to lack of proper resources and support.

“Response to kidnapping has been influenced by political considerations, with some cases being prioritized over others due to the social status or political connections of the victims”, he said.

Others argue that the politicization of kidnapping has hindered the effectiveness of security operations and has led to the unnecessary loss of lives. Most of them called on the government to take a more comprehensive and apolitical approach to addressing the issue of kidnapping, one that prioritizes the safety and well-being of all citizens and security personnel.

Lack of Motivation

Further interaction with the policemen showed that another major cause for the seeming lack of motivation among policemen to go after kidnappers through tracking of calls is compounded by the fact that investigation demands money, creating a significant barrier to effective crime-solving.

The process of tracking devices, according to police sources, is particularly cumbersome, as the necessary equipment is often only available at the Force headquarters, Abuja, and the Department of State Services (DSS). To confront the reality of the situation, most security agents from various government agencies emphasized to Saturday Vanguard that welfare is a critical concern requiring immediate attention.

A key issue, according to them, is providing adequate support to families of those who die in the line of duty.

To address this, they proposed that children of deceased policemen should receive scholarships for higher education up to the university level, enabling them to achieve academic goals and secure a brighter future. The majority of policemen suggested that children of deceased policemen interested in joining the police force should receive automatic employment.

A Sergeant from the Lagos State Police Command said, “In December 2020, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu compensated the families of six police officers killed in the state during EndSARS with N10 million each. This is the type of compensation we need. We heard that an IGP proposed awarding scholarships to children of rank and file, but we haven’t heard anything about it since.”

Kidnappers evade arrest

However, a senior Police officer revealed that kidnappers have devised a new method to evade detection, using their victims’ phones to make calls and communicate with families and friends.

This tactic according to him, has made it increasingly difficult for security agents to track and apprehend the kidnappers, as call tracking devices are no longer effective. The officer emphasized the need for alternative tracking devices and technologies to combat this new strategy, stressing that relying solely on call trackers is insufficient.

He urged for the deployment of more advanced technologies, such as GPS tracking and digital forensics, to stay ahead of the kidnappers and ensure the safe rescue of victims.

Additionally, the officer suggested that security agencies need to invest in other tracking devices that can detect and locate kidnappers through other means, such as IP addresses, social media activity, and online transactions among other devices.

Nigerians are of the view that it is no longer enough to simply react to kidnapping incidents after they have occurred. Rather, the need for security agencies to adopt a more proactive approach by using improved modern-day technology to track and apprehend kidnappers before they strike was echoed from different sectors of society.

This can be achieved through the deployment of advanced surveillance systems, data analytics, and intelligence-gathering techniques that can help identify and locate potential kidnappers.

Furthermore, the Federal Government must demonstrate the political will to tackle the menace of kidnapping headlong, by addressing its root causes such as poverty, unemployment, and social inequality, to prevent the scourge from continuing to ravage the country.

Not our fault kidnappers are not tracked despite Comm Satellite, SIM, NIN — NCC

•We’ve had one person owning 3,000 lines, another 1,000 lines etc

Many times, people have wondered how the kidnappers and other bandits who are causing untold mayhem in the country, manage to get away, even after they are captured on videos, recorded on other devices and most of all when they make contact with their victims’ families.

Senate President of the Nigerian Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Henry Okunomo has expressed deep worry that in this age of tech advancement and the height Nigeria has attained in technological development, kidnappers could make contact with a victim’s families without being rounded up by security agents the next minute.

A worried Okunomo who appeared on television recently to discuss the issue of his abducted colleagues, appeared frustrated and clearly expressed dissatisfaction with the way security agencies are handling the matter.

He said: “I am not satisfied with the way security agencies are going about the matter. The government cannot tell me there is no other way this kidnapping thing can be nipped in the bud. After all, there are several measures already in place, why are they not working?”

The measures Okunomo was referring to, included the SIM card registration which the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC carried out in 2011; the Nigerian Identity Number, NIN enrolment, which the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC began in 2015; the NIN-SIM Registration exercise which the Federal government carried out in 2020, involving the NCC, NIMC and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN; and even the NigComSat-1R Communications satellite which the country shot into the orbit since 2012.

These measures, according to the government, were mainly to improve National Security by strengthening the capacity of Law Enforcement Agencies to tackle criminal use of mobile phones by checkmating activities of criminals. They were also to help simplify verification process and thus enable more secure transactions and interactions using mobile devices boosting confidence and participation in the digital economy; and also to improve governance and service delivery by providing accurate data for policymaking, facilitate secure access to E-government services online, as well as aiding in the implementation of social programs

However, despite all these measures, bandits, and kidnappers operate recklessly. Victims’ accounts at different times suggest that either the measures are not effective or someone in a position of taking action is complicit in the crimes.

In Zamfara State, a kidnap victim, Mallam Yushau Jangeme, was reported to have said security agents in his village, Jangeme, did nothing to trace the telephone calls of the bandits who kidnapped him. According to the publication, Jangeme said, at the time bandits kidnapped seven people in his village and he was contacted to bring ransom before they could be freed.

According to him, when he got to the forest to give kidnappers N1.4m out of N3m demanded, they detained him, saying he must bring the remaining N1.6m. All these happened irrespective of him having made available the phone numbers of his kidnappers to security agents before heading into the bush.

Everywhere, the story is the same. A public affairs commentator, Mr Chike Ogbu, who also expressed dissatisfaction with the way security agents are handling the case of the abducted medical students, said he could not understand the sense of SIM registration or its link with NIN when people could make ransom calls and not getting arrested with all the data that were supposed to accrue from the registrations.

He said: “We have had all manner of SIM activity registrations in this country. We have had Identity registrations and we have a communications satellite. Which one of them is not functioning or which agency of government is not releasing sensitive information necessary for picking these renegades? What is actually the problem, or are our security agents complicit?” he queried.

One of the reasons the NCC took a hard stance on the deadline for NIN-SIM linkage was to fulfil its objective to clean the country’s SIM ownership database and ensure that criminals could not take advantage of having multiple unlinked SIMs to carry out their nefarious activities. Yet, the situation appeared not to have abated.

But the Commission insists the fault is not from its end. A top official at the Commission who craved anonymity told Saturday Vanguard: “Yes, we were adamant on the deadline of the NIN-SIM linkage because of several dangerous security trends we discovered. Our resolve hinged on the need to close in on the chaos of untoward ownership of multiple SIM cards with unverified NIN details. We had instances where a single individual had over 10,000 lines linked to his NIN. In some cases, we have seen a single person with 1,000 lines, some 3,000 plus lines. What were they doing with these lines?

“From our interim findings, the owners of these lines did not purchase them for decent purposes or to undertake legitimate activities. We gave them enough time to make the decision of which of their lines they wanted to keep and discard the others. They did not. All lines in this category with unverified NINs were barred.

“On the issue of kidnappers making calls to victims’ families without being traced, I don’t think that power is residual in our hands. What we know is that whatever support the security agents have sought from us, as far as the national security question is concerned, we have always given to the best of our ability. Our duty is not to track and arrest people who make calls rightly or wrongly the source added.

Also, a reliable satellite Engineer at the Nigerian Communications Satellite Company, NIGCOMSAT LTD, who didn’t want his name mentioned, told Saturday Vanguard that the onus of taking action on whatever the communications satellite reveals, in terms of crimes, is squarely at the doorsteps of the security agencies, adding that, the door of the company has always been open to them for valuable information that aid their operations
He said: “One of the misconceptions about our satellite is people believing that it will snap photos or record videos of crime scenes and send them to security agents, but that is not how it works.

“Although NigComSat -1R is a communications satellite, it is not equipped with cameras. It gathers data and digital footprints which on demand, we usually make available to security agencies that can also read and interpret them effectively. So people should not think that because crimes are happening unabated, the satellite is not working or performing its duties” he added.

Vanguard News Nigeria