Nigeria's efforts to utilize digital technology for identifying and tracking criminal suspects are hindered by persistent infrastructure and coordination challenges. An investigation by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) into Edo State's Solomon Arase Command-and-Control Centre revealed that the centre's emergency lines were inactive, several roadside cameras were missing or non-functional, and state officials estimated that about N500 million would be needed to reactivate the facility. This highlights the risks of investing in surveillance systems without ensuring their long-term operation and maintenance.
The ICIR investigation, published on October 5, 2026, found that the Solomon Arase Command-and-Control Centre in Benin City had become non-functional less than three years after its commissioning in December 2023. The centre's video walls were blank, emergency telephone lines were inactive, and several cameras along major roads were missing or apparently non-functional. Public records did not disclose the full cost of the facility's wider CCTV network or its maintenance arrangements, raising questions about how governments fund, maintain, and monitor technology-driven security projects after commissioning.
In contrast, Kenya has successfully integrated its police command-and-control centre to coordinate emergency responses and surveillance in major cities. The Kenya National Police Service's 2023 annual report describes its Integrated Command, Control and Communication Centre (IC3) as responsible for coordinating emergency response, surveillance, critical operations, and traffic management in Nairobi and Mombasa. The report identifies an emergency call centre, a dispatching centre, and a critical incident management suite among the facility's components.
However, Kenya's experience also highlights the importance of maintaining the infrastructure on which integrated command systems depend. The same report identifies inadequate maintenance of surveillance cameras as a challenge affecting the effectiveness of the system. It also notes that the Mombasa centre was only partially operational at the time, demonstrating both the operational value of integrated command systems and the importance of sustaining them.
Rwanda has also incorporated information technology into its policing operations, using CCTV, biometrics, facial recognition, crime mapping, and digital forensics. The Rwanda National Police documented its use of these technologies in an article published on May 12, 2016. The police also described the deployment of INTERPOL's I-24/7 communications system at border posts and the airport to facilitate information exchange with international law enforcement agencies.
South Africa offers another example of successful surveillance technology deployment, with the City of Cape Town equipping 530 enforcement vehicles with in-vehicle cameras incorporating automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology. The city's Metro Police Strategic Surveillance Unit detected 41,005 incidents through CCTV during the 2025/26 period, resulting in 541 arrests. The city also reported a 35 percent increase in requests from the South African Police Service to view its surveillance footage during the six months from January to June 2026 compared with the same period in 2025.
The experiences of Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa offer lessons for Nigeria, where government assessments have identified limited surveillance coverage and gaps in command-and-control infrastructure. The Ministry of Police Affairs reported on October 6, 2025, that only Lagos, Edo, Oyo, and Akwa Ibom had functional command-and-control centres, highlighting the need for Nigeria to connect existing state surveillance facilities with emergency dispatch, police operations, and other authorised sources of intelligence, while ensuring that the systems remain functional.
Key points
- Nigeria's surveillance systems face infrastructure and coordination challenges.
- Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa have successfully integrated digital technology into policing operations.
- The experiences of these countries offer lessons for Nigeria to improve its surveillance systems.
