About two years ago in 2012, Lagos state Government established a command and control center for the security agencies. This
center serves as control center for the about 1200 cameras in Lagos
(1000 provided by Federal goverment, 200 by state governement, with 1000
more coming in by state government), and also as a call reception
center for emergency calls These are recent images of the Command and control center recently (this year), during a media tour. These images include some of the capabilities of the Command and Control Center.
Last
Monday, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State led other members of
Executive Council to a Public Security System demonstration of 27-screen
video wall monitors on the use of 1,200 security cameras deployed in
the state by the Federal Government where the recorded scene of an armed
robbery incident at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA,
was played back on the video wall to a spell boind audience comprising
senior journalists, senior government officials, among others at the
Command and Control Centre in Alausa, Lagos.
In the video clip,
unknown to the armed robbers, CCTV cameras installed in strategic places
to monitor activities clearly captured the robbery operation.
The police were able to close up on the characters involved in the crime and went after them.
After
some months of painstaking manhunt, the police arrested and paraded the
suspects before the public. The above scenario expounded the relevance
of security cameras in monitoring, fighting and tracking down criminals
activities in the society, especially, the most populous state in
Nigeria, Lagos.
Before now, the Federal
Government had deployed 1,000 CCTVs in strategic places across the state
to monitor crime. The state government added 200 making a total of
1,200 security cameras.
At the
inception of the initiative, there was a slight misunderstanding between
the FG and the state on implementation. While the state wanted to go
ahead with its own plan, following delay from the central authority, the
FG stopped the former from going ahead with the programme due to
logistics, among other reasons.
In 2009, the state government launched a pilot phase of CCTV initiative,
solar powered, only in three locations in the state, namely; Falomo
Bridge, Third Mainland Bridge and Eko Bridge.Before then, the Federal
Government had approached the state government of its intention to
control the installation and running of the project with Abuja and Lagos
selected for the first phase
The FG, under its National
Public Security System programme, earmarked installation of a thousand
cameras in Lagos for a start but 906 were installed then.
A
demonstration of the screen-video monitors was carried out by the
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, Mrs Nike
Animashaun, using the Lagos airport scene as a case study.
Activities,
at the airport, Agege Motor Road and Oshodi at that moment could be
monitored. The screen could zoom in on individuals, numbers plate of
vehicles and anything. In her presentation of the live feeds from the
various points in the state, she demonstrated how the cameras could zoom
into particular objects and also take snapshots in addition to making
360 degrees turns to capture events simultaneously.
The Director,
Computer Services in the Ministry of Science and Technology, Mr Debola
Omoboya, in his presentation took the audience through the emergency
telephony demo and how the state had been able to leverage on the
emergency telephony infrastructure. He demonstrated four key services
namely, the emergency telephony system, the video surveillance system,
the video conferencing system and the e-police system which is based on
the call centre located in the Command Centre.
Commissioner
for Science and Technology, Adebiyi Mabadeje, at the event, said the
state government had concluded arrangement to add another 1,000 security
cameras to the existing 1,200 to complement the efforts to reduce
crime.
According to him, security equipments deployed in the
state include 1,000 plus surveillance cameras, 66 base-stations on CDMA
technology, microwave links, normal telephony capacity, network with 3G
data capabilities, existing camera while telephony infrastructure has
the capacity to carry 100,000 subscribers.
According to the
commissioner, video conferencing had also been deployed to enable quick
decision making among security operative.
Speaking at the occasion,
Governor Fashola said government was planning to expand existing camera
and telephony infrastructure to support deployment of additional cameras
to cover the entire state to make it safe and secure. The governor was
optimistic that with all these security equipments being put in place,
there would be no hiding place for criminals in the state anymore.
He
explained that the demonstration was a follow up to what was started in
2008 when a pilot scheme was located in Lekki with one camera.
According to him, the demonstration was meant to show how far his
administration had gone in spite of the many criticisms, cynicism and
doubts cast on the project.
“Now we have moved from a zero camera
state to about 1,200 camera state. We are now in a position where we are
now on one camera to about 10 sq kilometers, so we are far behind other
cities like New York and London, where they range between 200 and 450
cameras per sq km. How did we do it? We have merged our cameras with the
ones that the Federal Government installed, so we have taken all the
feeds in here. We have moved from one small screen that you saw in Lekki
to 27 screens that are collapsible in all forms either to one big wall,
three screens and so on,” he explained.
According
to him, what was being enjoyed now started with the Security Trust Fund
which provided equipment, vehicles and stuff and was followed by street
signage as it was discovered that while the police could move, they
could not identify streets. “We followed that with house numbering, all
of which are still work- in-progress and we realize that now that we
could get police to move, but how do we call them? We moved from an 11
digit number to three digit number, 767 or 112 because we did not think
people in trauma will remember an 11 digit number easily and how quickly
you can contact the police or ambulance is the difference between what
practitioners of disaster management call the golden hour.”
Fashola
maintained that the work had not finished by any measure or distance,
as there is a lot of room for improvement, which is what his
administration would continue to seek.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/02/lagos-crime-bursting-cameras/#sthash.fA1xd4sD.dpuf
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