A cross-section of security personnel, security experts and academics Tuesday discussed methods of combating organised crime in Africa and the challenges therein. The stakeholders spoke on the first day of a two-day symposium on exploring effective strategies for tackling organised crime on the continent.
The symposium was organised by the Center for Fiscal Transparency and Integrity Watch in Abuja. The speakers included officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), members of other security agencies, Open Data experts and academics
Using open data to combat crime
Speaking virtually, Parvathy Krishnan, a data scientist at the Analytics for a Better World Institute, underscored the need for security agencies to use open data to trace, predict and intercept crimes.
She said: “While social media platforms have inadvertently become very breeding grounds for radicalization and organised crime communication, they simultaneously also serve as huge reservoirs of data, enabling law enforcement and researchers to get insights, foresee potential threats and strategise countermeasures.
“By analysing vast volumes of data, be it incident reports, tip-offs, online communications media articles, we are no longer simply reacting to crime, we are able to predict it. Predictive Analytics helps police and law enforcement anticipate criminal activities, optimise resource deployment and essentially be a step ahead.”
Meanwhile, during a panel session, EFCC’s Head of Cybercrime Unit, Nuru Dalhatu, spoke on the need for a syndicated partnership among security agencies. He said at present, the agencies work in isolation from each other making it difficult for them to synthesise available data from the different agencies.
“The major problem is the agencies, we operate in silos. Everybody is making their own efforts to fight crime but the entire ecosystem is operating in a silo,” he said.
“I can only access information from Road Safety if they give me an API to connect with their information. So we have information in Nigeria lying in silos. And you cannot access information because I have to walk maybe physically to Road Safety to check if the licence is genuine or fake. I have to walk to Nigerian immigration to confirm if a person has a passport and what’s the passport number. That is how we are. And we cannot fight it. And it made us vulnerable.”
Military solution not enough
Meanwhile, the Coordinator for the Security, Violence and Conflict (SVC) Research Group at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Freedom Onuoha, a professor, said the solution to most of Africa’s internal conflicts is constructive dialogues and not military operations.
Mr Onuoha said many internal conflicts devastating the continent could be forestalled with constructive dialogues other than the use of arms. According to him, the use of arms has only led to a cycle of conflict that is now prevalent in virtually all regions of the continent.
Mr Onuoha cited examples of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF); and the conflict between Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
He noted that the use of military power has hardly quenched any rebellion in Nigeria in recent times. Despite military efforts, he said conflicts in Africa are on the increase, moving from about 15 to 26 between 2010 and 2022. “When we talk about organised crime in Africa, there’s always the tendency to see the connection in terms of political environment as one of the factors that lead to them,” he said.
“We have seen cases where issues of marginalisation, poverty, unemployment have led people to organised crime.
“Studies have already begun to show that Africa will remain the region with the most conflict in 2022. From ten years ago, the number of conflicts in Africa has nearly doubled from about 15 in 2010 to about 26 in 2022.”
‘Discussions apt, timely’
Earlier in their goodwill messages, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Solomon Arase; the Chairman of the EFCC, Ola Olukoyede; and the Vice President of Interpol, Garba Umar, described the symposium as apt and timely. Speaking Mr Arase, represented by Brighton Cigwe, said the symposium represents the current realities of Nigeria in the fight against crime.
Mr Olukoyede, meanwhile, called for concerted efforts among security agencies to present a united front in the fight against organised crime and the movement of illicit funds. He was represented by Adebayo Adeniyi.
Source: Premium Times
