Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has laid the foundation for the construction of the Nigeria Police Crime and incident database (NPCID) estimated at the cost of N16 billion when completed.
Osinbajo said the centre will equip the Nigeria Police Force with the necessary modern instrument to be able to tackle the technical and smart ways crimes have evolved over the years.
He challenged the police on modern techniques for solving crimes, noting that the Nigeria Police officers have always been one of the best in the world.
“The Nigeria Police Force has been one of the best in the world. I am saying this because I witnessed what they achieved in Somalia on a peace mission as I worked with the United Nations and saw how our police distinguished themselves.
“Also, as an attorney general in Lagos for eight years, I worked with the police. The challenge has been lack of equipment and welfare of the policemen. I believe that with the proposed Nigeria Police Crime and incident database, our men will conduct police activities smartly and faster,” he said.
The acting Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Idris explained that the centre will help the police to process data of suspects and get the needed information even if the suspect committed the crime in any part of the country.
Idris noted that the aim of the centre is to harness all data across the federation into one central base where police detectives can just key in the name of a suspect and his or her data will pop out.
He further stated that the establishment of the centre was long overdue considering the myriads of challenges that characterised the manual form of police crime and incident registers, which have become obsolete and moribund.
