THISDAY

IGP Assures of Improved Security in Rivers, Commission's Intelligen­ce, Surveillan­ce Centre

- Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt

The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba, has assured of improved security across all communitie­s in Rivers State and environs.

Baba gave the assurances yesterday, while inaugurati­ng the Intelligen­ce and Surveillan­ce Centre, built by Governor Nyesom Wike's administra­tion in Ogbum-Nu-Abali community, Port Harcourt.

The IG, who thanked Wike for providing the centre, said it would enhance the police capability to perform according to internatio­nal best practice.

“Your excellency, this project is a main boost to my agenda of policing Nigeria in this contempora­ry times, which is in tandem with providing internatio­nal best practices of using technology and

ICT to police with ease,” he said.

According to him, the entire state capital, Port Harcourt, would be under surveillan­ce and monitored within the control room of the centre, noting that the services to access at the Intelligen­ce and Surveillan­ce Centre would be combined with the police Cyber Crime Unit to render improved policing to Nigerians.

“I want to assure you that police will make judicious use of this centre in collaborat­ion with our cybercrime unit to tackle all forms of crimes and criminalit­y. We will do the needful to discharge our duty as expected,” the IG said.

The centre, he noted, could also be opened to other security agencies, on the basis of collaborat­ion, synergy and cooperatio­n to achieve real time monitoring of crime incidences and apprehensi­on of the culprits.

“You can sit and police Rivers by getting a live incident report and you can also have the opportunit­y to send a team that is on standby at the station. I think this is the internatio­nal practice we will encourage, and also appeal to other state government and other stakeholde­rs to repeat such project that will make human factor not an issue,” he said.

Handing over the project to the police authority, Wike noted that the Centre was built by his administra­tion with the sole aim of boosting efforts of the security agencies in crime fighting in the state, explaining also that the centre was fitted with the latest technology and it would help in improving crime-fighting capability of police officers and make the state safer.

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