‘Politicians used IRT’s tracker to monitor enemies, mistresses instead of kidnappers’

A senior police officer, now retired, has said that the real-time tracking technological platform that once helped the Intelligence Response Team, IRT, to crack many criminal cases ended up being used by politicians to monitor “enemies and mistresses”.

The officer said this while responding to Vanguard’s question on what went wrong with the system put in place to monitor the locations of kidnappers and interception of calls for prompt arrest and rescue of abducted victims.

The police launched intelligence-led policing in 2015 with the installation of a tracking device that was installed by the then-Inspector-General of Police office, Solomon Arase.

There was also the operation unit code-named Intelligence Response Team, IRT, (still in operation). The team monitored the kidnappers’ movements in real-time, with the information from the device, thereby helping them stay one step ahead.

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This device also helped investigators analyse the locations and patterns of calls made by the kidnappers, the routes, and potential safe houses.

In addition, the device provided valuable evidence, such as call records, location data and communication patterns, to build a strong case against the kidnappers.

One such case was the arrest of five kidnappers of former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae. He was taken captive by the herdsmen on September 21, 2015, during his 77th birthday.

In this case, five of the kidnappers came to pick up the N5 million ransom in Suleja, Niger State.

One of the senior police officers who effected the breakthrough told Saturday Vanguard “Immediately the kidnappers removed the SIM card used to negotiate, we knew where they were and intercepted them at the last bridge to Minna.

“The ransom money they collected was still in the boot and the SIM card. Five of them were arrested. The motorcycle they used to convey Chief Olu Falae was retrieved.

“The N5 million ransom was marked by the bank. They removed only N100,000 from it. The kidnappers were sentenced to life imprisonment.”

Asked what went wrong with the system put in place to monitor the locations of kidnappers and interception of calls for prompt arrest and rescue of abducted victims, the retired senior officer attributed it to the priority of successive Inspectors General of Police.

He said: “The priority of successive IGPs was quite different. Solomon Arase set up the platform when he was the IGP. It was a technical platform to track calls.

“It was mounted in the IGP’s office then and only one officer, who is now an AIG, had access to the technical platform.

“The Intelligence Response Team, IRT was supposed to be the operational wing that would work with the technical platform. When the technical team got information, it would pass it to IRT to go to the location and make an arrest. Drones and vehicles were bought for the operation.

“But successive IGPs who were analogues didn’t know what to do. They merged the technical platform and IRT. Instead of the platform being used for crime prevention, it became political.

“People in the National Assembly and Villa got hold of the platform and used it to track their enemies and mistresses.

“For such a platform, you don’t give both the technical and the operational units to just one person who would be compromised by politicians. That was the beginning of the collapse of the platform. It requires someone with power and intelligence; someone of a strategic level who is keen on that line.

“This platform was supposed to be renewed and hooked up with the service provider. But that was never the priority of successive IGPs.

“They had money to pay for the accumulated subscription but they refused to pay. When you leave such a system for more than one year, it requires recalibration. This technology keeps evolving.

“You can’t say something you set up today will be used the same way for 10 years without being upgraded. Before long, the system broke down, and the functionality of the police tracking equipment began to diminish and subsequently went comatose.

The tracker, particularly, became non-functional due to non-subscription as well as failure to engage the relevant company to carry out required system upgrades.

“Due to the failure to pay subscription fees for about three years, and after a grace period had expired, the company overseeing its maintenance and upgrade decided to withdraw its services. This made it difficult to track bandits, kidnappers, and other forms of violent crimes.”

However, Saturday Vanguard gathered that the present IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, reactivated the tracking device.

However, despite its reactivation, in addition to the tracking devices of the DSS and Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, kidnappers are still having their way without being tracked in many parts of the country.

Meanwhile, one of the reasons the NCC took a hard stance on the deadline for NIN-SIM linkage was to fulfil its objective to clean the country’s SIM ownership database and ensure that criminals could not take advantage of having multiple unlinked SIMs to carry out their nefarious activities. Yet, the situation appeared not to have abated.

But the Commission insists the fault is not from its end. A top official at the commission who craved anonymity told Saturday Vanguard: “Yes, we were adamant on the deadline of the NIN-SIM linkage because of several dangerous security trends we discovered. Our resolve hinged on the need to close in on the chaos of untoward ownership of multiple SIM cards with unverified NIN details. We had instances where a single individual had over 10,000 lines linked to his NIN. In some cases, we have seen a single person with 1,000 lines, some 3,000 plus lines. What were they doing with these lines?

“From our interim findings, the owners of these lines did not purchase them for decent purposes or to undertake legitimate activities. We gave them enough time to make the decision of which of their lines they wanted to keep and discard the others. They did not. All lines in this category with unverified NINs were barred.

“On the issue of kidnappers making calls to victims’ families without being traced, I don’t think that power is residual in our hands. What we know is that whatever support the security agents have sought from us, as far as the national security question is concerned, we have always given to the best of our ability. Our duty is not to track and arrest people who make calls rightly or wrongly the source added.

Also, a reliable satellite Engineer at the Nigerian Communications Satellite Company, NIGCOMSAT Ltd, who didn’t want his name mentioned, also told Vanguard that the onus of taking action on whatever the communications satellite reveals, in terms of crimes, is squarely at the doorsteps of the security agencies, adding that the door of the company has always been open to them for valuable information that aid their operations

He said: “One of the misconceptions about our satellite is people believing that it will snap photos or record videos of crime scenes and send them to security agents, but that is not how it works.

“Although NigComSat -1R is a communications satellite, it is not equipped with cameras. It gathers data and digital footprints which on demand, we usually make available to security agencies that can also read and interpret them effectively. So people should not think that because crimes are happening unabated, the satellite is not working or performing its duties” he added.