GIS & SECURITY
The word ‘insecurity’ has become far too familiar to Nigerians in every part of the country. For the most part of recent history, tales of insecurity like mass kidnappings, bombings, internal displacement and so on were focused in one part of the country, the North; but more recently every geographical area of our beloved country is now ravaged with one “type” of insecurity or another. Due to this, various aspects of life have been gravely affected and forced to take the backseat to survival. For one, travelling is basically an extreme sport with kidnappers lurking around roads and train stations; worship is one mile more sacred with the added incentive of possibly losing your life on a seemingly calm Sunday morning. Hence, it has become increasingly important to improve the state of security in the country by adopting better tools and technologies alongside enhanced training to back it up. This is where Geographic Information System (GIS) can come in. Using GIS technology, particularly its geospatial feature, it is possible to create a database of police stations in Nigeria with precise coordinates that includes regions representing the entire geographic area as well as point coordinates for each station. Every region can further be defined and assigned to either a single police officer or a patrol group -each with a personal digital map, for maximum accountability and efficiency. Therefore, security personnel and agencies will be provided the ability to plan and monitor suitable initiatives owing to the shared dashboards that will display […]