Industry stakeholders have called for improved national Information Communication Technology framework for policing aimed at protecting telecommunications infrastructure and the use of unregistered SIM cards to commit crime in the country
Speaking recently in a workshop, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, said the telecoms infrastructure must be protected for efficient service delivery, lamenting that it is against the law to use an unregistered SIM card in Nigeria.
He urged the stakeholders on the urgent need to develop effective ways of beating every case of violation of the laws within the ecosystem, by ensuring that anyone arrested with unregistered SIM is prosecuted.
According to the EVC who was represented by Mr. Tony Ojobo, Director, Public Affairs of NCC, “We already know we need to do this. But what needs to be done differently, and how it should be done to achieve the most efficient results must be addressed.
“We need to generate ideas that would meet the challenges and enhance a more robust climate for telecommunications regulation in Nigeria,” NCC Boss said.
Speaking on Technology as a catalyst for effective policing, the former Inspector General of Police, Dr. Solomon Arase said there was the need for the Police to collaborate with NCC for application of technical intelligence to combat crimes.
“With an effective use of technology in policing, there will be detection, prevention of crime, apprehension of offenders, active intelligence gathering ability, scientific evidence in aid of prosecution, restoration of citizen’s confidence and analog policing to best international policing standards.
Dealing with crimes on Satellite based telephony systems, dealing with crimes on internet based video/ voice communication system, challenges with pre-registered SIM cards, legal/ethical issues, institutional capacity gap, budgetary limitations, absence of national police ICT policy, unsavoury inter-agency collaboration among strategic players in ICT, among others, according to him are some of the challenges.
As a way forward, he called for multi-layer collaboration between NCC, service providers, government and Policing agencies.
In his views, Paul Usoro, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who spoke on telecommunications offenses in Nigeria, challenges of diligent prosecution and the way forward, much may not be achieved by regulating telecommunications in Nigeria unless relevant agencies collaborate.
“There should be knowledge sharing among relevant agencies, monitoring, investigation, and prosecution of criminals should be carefully followed”.
He said that there should be speedy disposal of cases generally despite challenge of getting the witnesses, he noted that Nigerian courts should be computerized. I do not know why we cannot get voice records on the court, he said.
