Reps To Probe N76bn Abuja, Lagos CCTV Contract

The House of Representatives yesterday directed its
Committees on Information and Communication
Technology, ICT, Public Safety and National Security to
probe the failure of ZTE Corporation to execute contract
for the installation of Close Circuit Television Cameras,
CCTVs, in Abuja and Lagos, years after it was awarded
by the Federal Government.

The contract allegedly awarded at the cost of $470 million (N76 billion then) by the late Umar Musa Yar'Adua's administration
had been a subject of litigation, as an Abuja-based
lawyer, Olugbenga Adeyemi, had in the past gone to
court, seeking an order to compel the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to investigate the
failed contract.

However, not much was heard afterward, even after a
High Court sitting in Abuja granted leave for Adeyemi to
apply for the judicial review of mandamus compelling
the 1st respondent, EFCC, to investigate and prosecute
those involved in the contract.

Apparently disturbed by the current spate of insecurity
in the nation, a member of the House, Saviour Udoh, in a
motion on the urgent need to deploy CCTV cameras to
check the security challenges in Nigeria, prayed that the
matter be investigated by the Committees, which are
expected to turn in their reports within two weeks.

The contract was for the Chinese telecommunications
giant to install 2,000 digital solar powered cameras,
(1,000 each for Abuja and Lagos), 37 switch rooms, MW
backbone, 37 coalition emergency response system, 38
video conference subsystem, 37 e-police system, six
emergency communication vehicles and 1.5 million
subscriber lines, designed to be funded by the Nigerian
government and the China Export Bank as contained in
the contract papers.

Udoh recalled that the security system was intended to
capture images on a 24-hour basis for the analysis of the
relevant security agencies, but noted that despite the
alleged completion and handover to the government
since 2012, no criminal activity had ever been detected
through the security cameras.

In a related development,the House of Representatives
yesterday lamented what it called "a notorious" act of
indiscriminate extortion of money and pilfering of
luggage belonging to travelers using the nation's
international airports by security agents who are
supposed to secure same.

The House expressed worries based on the fact that
airports were the first and last contact points between
travelers and countries as they either created a good
impression or the opposite on citizens visiting or
traveling out of the country.

This followed a motion on matters of urgent national
importance brought by Hassan Saleh, (PDP, Benue),
calling attention of the House to excesses of security
operatives at the nation's airports.

Hassan Saleh noted: "It is a notorious fact that our
security operatives at the country's airports have
developed a very huge bottomless appetite for extorting
money from passengers who are either traveling out or
into the country by using all flimsy excuses to intimidate
and frustrate some passengers despite meeting all the
requisite conditions to travel so as to part with some
monies".

"That this huge number of security operatives have
brought about slowing down of intended travelers in the
process of screening before they get to the boarding
gate, while they brazingly engage in illicit activities of
extorting money from travelers and those arriving into
the country."

He explained that the near total collapse of the CCTV
cameras at the airports, particularly the luggage hall of
the international terminal of the Lagos airport and other
airports, had made pilfering of passengers' luggage very
easy without detection.

"These operatives are so shameless that they no longer
hide this demeaning act of theirs, reason being that they
are aware that a lot of the CCTV cameras at the airports
are not working, rather than operate as undercover
agents at the airport, they now compete in the bid to
outdo each other by intimidating and creating fear in the
mind of intending travelers and those arriving into the
country while others are scheming to be posted to the
airports which is seen as 'cash cow' for milking," he said.
He said these acts put together were portraying the
nation in negative light not only before its citizen in
diaspora, but also foreigners.

After taking the prayer mandating the relevant
Committees to direct the Federal Aviation Authority of
Nigeria, FAAN, to urgently re-activate or replace all non-
functional CCTV cameras at the airports, the motion was
referred to the House Committees on Interior and
Aviation for further legislative action. [Vanguard]