The news about Yunusa Jibrin, a UK-Based Nigerian Researcher, who invented AI tool to identify bandits in their hideouts, is truly something to cheer about, as it promises to drastically bring to it’s minimum the current alarming state of insecurity across Nigeria.
Nigeria’s Security Scenario
The number one job of an government anywhere, is to provide security to lives and property of its citizenry.
Unfortunately, like many of the duties it owe it’s citizens, successive Nigerian governments have performed below expectations in this area, and as a result, many lives are wasted needlessly. Many reasons have been given by security operatives, for its inability to tackle the security challenges bedeviling the Nigeria nation. Chief among which is inadequate manpower, poor funding and investment in security infrastructures, lack of modern security and surveillance
equipment and materials among many others.
Security and Defence Budget
While these may be legitimate concerns, government on its own part have been spending mind boggling amounts of money on security annually with little or nothing to show for it. For instance, N3.25 trillion has been allocated to the defence and security sector, representing 11.8% of the current national budget.
Successive Nigerian governments have also spent billions of naira annually on security and defense. What is still a concern is that these huge budgetary allocations were actually utilized for the purpose it was meant for.
Indeed, it appears like the more money that is allocated to defense and security, the more the security situation worsens. I can cite several horrifying cases of acts of terrorism, banditry, armed robbery, kidnapping, ritual murders, and even armed confrontations between security forces, both local and transnational terror groups and criminal elements. We hear, read and sometimes watch these gruesome situations play out on our national life almost on a daily basis.
Yet, humongous slice of Nigeria’s annual national budget is dedicated to fighting bandits and terror groups, with little to show for it in comparison to the annual national spent. Perhaps, this worrisome situation the nation found itself in was what may have prompted this patriotic Nigerian to go into deep research, to discover a solution to Nigeria’s security challenge. Fortunately, the search has yielded a positive result.
The Jibrin Intervention
On 3rd of March, the news of a Nigerian UK-based student, who had invented an AI tool with capability to help the government fight banditry filtered into the media space and was quickly spread by several Nigerian newspapers. The man in the news, Yunusa Jibrin, a master’s degree graduate in computer science from the University of Sussex, made a startling revelation. According to Yunusa, he had invented an AI tool with the potential to ‘identify bandits and their hideouts in Nigeria.’ Mr. Jibrin gives further details of how he came about his invention during his interview with a popular Nigerian newspaper, saying that he “Undertook an innovative approach, leveraging AI-driven image synthesis to generate thousands of visual representations depicting bandits in desert environments, complete with weapons and vehicles.
”He further explains that: “Employing this synthesized dataset, I employed a Vision Transformer model to discern terrorist elements within the images, achieving remarkable accuracy in preliminary evaluations.” Put simply, Jibrin’s invention leverages AI surveillance infrastructures to accurately detect security breaches in criminal enclaves, (think Sambisa forest and similar areas where criminal elements have built their strong bases); and alert security agencies of the criminal’s precise location, how many they are, the types of weapons in their possession, all via crystal clear video images, helping them to prepare adequately to take appropriate actions against the criminals.
To be clear, Jibrin’s invention is not new in the field of AI, but it’s still a welcome development worthy of commendation, and the effort worth every inch of support the government could give him, especially as it appears helpless in current security situation.
AI Use in Surveillance & Security
The coming of Artificial Intelligence, is said to breathe new life into traditional security and surveillance industry. Past methods were dependent on manual oversight and interpretation of video records. In contrast, AI-powered surveillance systems possess the instantaneous ability to analyze video footage, underscore anomalous actions, and alert security
personnel.
In an article by Stephen Amell published in Medium, he posits that “Image Synthesis AI, powered by generative AI models, has emerged as a groundbreaking technology… These advanced algorithms have the ability to generate highly realistic images, that can be used for a wide range of applications. By harnessing the power of machine learning and deep neural networks, image synthesis AI is transforming the way we create and perceive visual content.” Amell further highlights the significance of generative AI models for image synthesis. “Image synthesis AI is the use of generative AI models, to create new images or modify existing images. These models are trained on vast datasets and learn patterns, textures, and structures to generate visually coherent and compelling images.” Amell also said that Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), a popular class of generative AI models is used for image synthesis and consist of two components, one, a generator network, and two, a discriminator network, and both work together to improve the quality of generated images.
It would appear that Jibrin had taken a deeper dive into the amazing capabilities of AI driven image synthesis, by exploring it’s possible deployment in the field of security and surveillance, in a bid to assist the Nigerian security agencies in its efforts to tackle the security monster, which had pillaged trillions of naira, while Nigeria remained largely a playing field for bandits and criminal gangs, forcing many big companies to shut down and leave, while many of its citizens ‘japa’ overseas in pursuit of a safer clime and a better living standards.
Government Response
Yunusa’s is evidently seeking partnership with the Nigerian government of the day, in order to deploy his invention in the Nigerian security and surveillance architectures to enhance the fight against banditry and criminality in the system.
According to Jibrin, if his findings is adopted by the federal government, it would help direct the military’s efforts toward identifying and eliminating bandits, wherever they may be hiding in the country. But it’s yet to be seen what the government response to his proposal would be. A nagging part of this whole scenario is sincerity on the part of government personnel, who may be beneficiaries of the current state of anomy. Indeed, it’s an open secret that some of the ‘trillions’ of naira budgeted for security have found its way into private pockets, which explains why so much had been spent to achieve so few results. Which leaves one to wonder whether the nation’s security has been reduced to a military industrial complex.
