The National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, has said the use of technology in fighting crimes in the country has never been an easy feat because it is expensive in nature.
According to him, it takes time to acquire the necessary technological weapons to fight crimes especially when the country lacks the capacity to mass-produce these weapons.
Munguno, who took part in the security council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House on Thursday, was reacting to a question posed by State House Correspondents on why it seems so difficult to deploy technology, especially in some areas that the military has been having problems?
His response, “So, the first question has to do with why is it so difficult to deploy technology. One, technology is expensive. Technology takes time to acquire these things. Since inherently we do not produce these very, very delicate equipment.
“It’s not as if the government is not making any effort to acquire but we need to know who to acquire this technology from, where, when and there are certain processes. For now, I know we have but the plight is that they are inadequate, so to the government, it’s a continuous process. That’s what I can say about the issue of deploying technology.”
Commenting on the porous nature of Nigerian borders and how it is impacting on national security, the NSA attributed some of the challenge to the extensive nature of our borders.
His words, “Obviously, we have very extensive borders, and I’m not going to deceive anyone. All of us know that we have problems of infiltration by virtue of the fact that we have a very large economy. It attracts a lot of people from outside and they come in illegally, not just through the land borders, but also through the maritime waters.
“Of course, in the case of the maritime borders, the most of things have been done in the last one year, to secure the maritime to domain up to the point that the International Maritime Bureau has acknowledged the fact that in 27 years, our maritime borders have not been as secure and peaceful as they were in the last one year.
“That is a fact is not a conjecture, I didn’t cook up this thing. So, we want to see how we can replicate that type of effort to put in the maritime domain on our land borders. That is something that the council is looking into.”
