Pantami: Create criminal data bank before replacing BVN

A common feature of governance in developing countries like Nigeria is policy summersault and inconsistency. Each government that comes onboard tries to undo the previous administration in all it can. This is irrespective of the socio, political economy consequences to the nation and the citizenry. This was one major reason for huge waste of funds as well as human productivity in these countries. In fact, this style of governance is counter-productive. Thus, policy synergy is needed in Nigeria.

Recently, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Ali Isa Ibrahim Pantami, was in the news again on the National Identification Number (NIN). This time around he was more of a legal expert, arguing on the scrapping of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) with full legal reasoning. Nigerians are all witnesses to the role of BVN in reducing financial crimes in our land. Thus, we need to look deeply before throwing the bath water with the baby! Our security organizations or law enforcement agencies need to be fully involved on this matter of national importance. Sidelining our law enforcement agencies will create a huge vacuum that may not be filled in the short run.

Before you replace BVN with NIN, kindly allow inputs from the Nigeria Police Force, the State Security Service/Department of State Services, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commissions, the Nigeria Civil Defence Corps, and the Nigeria Intelligence Agency. All these governmental security or law enforcement agencies have vital roles to play in advising on how to go with this new policy. Their experiences in dealing with crimes with the help of BVN will be of great use.

Before we trash BVN, we kindly need a National Criminal Data Bank or whatever name the administration decides to call it. But this data bank is of utmost importance in our national development. This National Criminal Data Bank would contain all criminal information or biodata, just like NIN. For example, most of the bandits arrested and released might easily sneak into another community or IDP camps and claim to be victims rather than the perpetrators of heinous crimes. No arresting agency has detailed records of all of its arrestees, not to talk of sharing such records with sister agencies.

In 21st century crime, the criminal data bank is vital to such a fight. It is through such a data bank that criminals are traced within seconds. For example, there was an interesting case in the United States in the 1960s. It was a case of a stolen vehicle. In the first decade of the 2000s, it was to be shipped out of the United States through the port of Los Angeles, California. The vehicle was identified as a stolen vehicle at the port, through checks by the port’s Customs officials, through what is called National Criminal Information Center (NCIC). NCIC is the criminal data bank in the United States and Canada. Whatever crime (no matter how small) it is reported into this data bank, even a case of stolen pen, yes pen. Once it is reported to any law enforcement agency, that law enforcement agency must report it into the NCIC.

Establishing this data bank in Nigeria will help in fighting banditry, kidnapping, and insurgency. All those arrested and confirmed to have committed any of these heinous crimes will be uploaded into the data bank, thus having their records there. This agency needs to be domiciled in the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) in order to reduce supervisory frictions that may arise if left or domiciled in a ministerial supervisory, or inspector general of police control.

Honorable minister, your efforts towards digitizing Nigerian governance is highly appreciated. But l more needs to be done particularly in area of fighting crimes and criminals not only on e-commerce and governance. Fighting criminality is as important as e-governance, particularly fighting cybercrimes. Thus, having a criminal data bank may give Nigeria an upper hand in fighting both cyber and traditional crimes, as well as emergent crimes as a result of scientific and technological innovations. Hope one day, either under your ICT revolution or another ICT guru like you, Nigeria will come to have a criminal data bank.

Mustapha Maikudi Abdullahi

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