THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN COMBATING SECURITY CHALLENGES IN NIGERIA

The growing challenge of security in Nigeria is of concern to all and every effort must be employed to combat this challenge. Some of the pertinent questions raised in the paper are, Can the security agencies and their strategy guarantee internal security in Nigeria? Do these agencies have proper Information Technology Infrastructure in place for the purpose of information gathering, sharing and dissemination? Do they have adequate surveillance equipment? Information technology (IT) will play a critical role in strengthening Nigeria’s National security against potential future attacks. Specifically, IT will help enable the nation to identify potential threats, share information more readily, provide mechanisms to protect the Nation, and develop response capabilities. The use of Emergency Communication Systems, GPS-enabled devices, Social Networking Tools, emergencyoperation centers (EOCs), Intelligent Monitoring systems, Data Mining and Database Tracking systems and Information Sharing will greatly improve the ability of the security agencies to combat security challenges in Nigeria.