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| Major-General Anthony Atolagbe (rtd) |
A former Commander of Operation Safe Heaven, Gen. Anthony Atolagbe (retd), has said that the deployment of Technology to provide security during general Election is Long Overdue, hence called for the deployment of technology to help in providing security in Nigeria, especially during elections.
The level of insecurity in some areas of the country has left many Nigerians wondering if the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will be able to conduct elections in some places.
Gen. Anthony Atolagbe (retd) said this while featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday.
General Atolagbe, a former force commander in Darfur, Sudan said some of the security challenges dragging the country’s progress would have been taken care of with technologies.
“If wishes were horses, I have been to a lot of places and I can tell you how things could have gotten better. For instance, if we have satellites that have earth observation capabilities, this can capture even car number plates,” Gen. Atolagbe said.
The retired army general added, “In a situation where someone commits a traffic offense, it’s easy. So, it’s so powerful that areas can be easily captured but these are not things that can be done overnight. We really need to find a way to key into some of these things so that subsequently things can improve.
“What else can be deployed? There are what we call vehicle and cargo inspection systems that are used if you go to the border between US and Mexico; we don’t have some of these facilities because these are force multipliers in the sense that they reduce the effort that you put in using manpower.”
Meanwhile, INEC has assured that the Commission will conduct elections in all the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in the country.
The electoral umpire’s National Commissioner and Chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, gave the assurance while also appearing as a guest on the same show.
He said the Commission knows the number of IDP camps and persons living in those places, adding that they are going to configure all of them into registration areas.
Okoye assured that eligible persons in IDP camps will have the opportunity to vote.