Buhari approves use of drones, CCTV to curb crimes

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President  Muhammadu Buhari has approved the use of drones and installation of hidden Close Circuit Television Cameras on major highways to curb crimes in the country.

Buhari at a meeting with traditional rulers from South West Nigeria announced that he “will be issuing directives to the appropriate federal authorities to speedily approve licensing for States requesting the use of drones to monitor forests and other criminal hideouts,”

“We also intend to install CCTVs on highways and other strategic locations so that activities in some of those hidden places can be exposed, more effectively monitored and open to actionable review.” He said

He assured the traditional rulers “and the entire nation that we will enforce the law, prosecute law breakers and secure an atmosphere of tranquility for all Nigerians wherever they choose to live and also protect our communities from all forms of crimes.

“We need security to deliver on our many programmes to the people. There can be no prosperity if there is no security”, he said

The President reaffirmed his plans to change the security architecture of the country saying it is one of the top priorities for the government but added that it will be impossible to achieve  this goal without the support and input of the traditional rulers.

“As the traditional authorities in your communities, government and the security agencies will be relying on you to monitor the several different communities and people coming in and out of your areas.

“We hope that, for instance, traditional rulers would be able to observe new entrants into the community by requesting leaders of such ethnic groups to notify the traditional authorities of new intakes, thereby creating the opportunities for the gathering of actionable intelligence which tracks such movements in and out of communities thereby offering early warning signals.”

Outlining some of these interventions by his administration, President Buhari said they “include an expedited commencement of community policing, a robust revamping of police intelligence gathering capacity and the significant boosting of the numbers of security personnel in our local communities. This in specific terms will include recruiting a lot more police officers and doing so right from their local government areas, where they would then be stationed in the best practice of community policing.”

According to him, “We will equally continue to bring in our military when needed to complement the work of the police including possible deployment of troops on certain highways on a temporary basis, and the use of the Air Force assets to bomb hideouts where criminals are located.”

Nigeria has been experiencing violent crimes including religious extremism by separatist Islamic sect, Boko Haram in the North East, Banditry and Cattle rustling in North West, robbery and kidnapping in the South West and South East

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