ACCESSIBILITY AND UTILISATION OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY BY THE NIGERIA SECURITY AND CIVIL DEFENCE CORPS IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) was established to assist in the protection and rescuing of the populace during the period of emergency as well as maintaining 24 hours surveillance over public infrastructure against any act of criminality. However, there is evidence that this mandate of the NSCDC cannot be achieved without appropriate and effective deployment of ICT. Previous studies have focused largely on disaster management, and peace and conflict resolution activities of the NSCDC with little emphasis on the agency’s deployment of ICT for security management. This study, therefore, was designed to investigate the accessibility and utilisation of ICT by NSCDC in Southwestern Nigeria.

Human Capital, Diffusion of Innovation and the Path-Goal theories served as anchor, while the survey design was adopted. The Zone ‘F’ Command of the NSCDC comprising all the states in the South-west, except Lagos State, was randomly selected, while stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 939 personnel from three out of the four existing departments across the zone: Administration (260), Operations (488) and Intelligence/Investigation (191). Instruments used were ICT Accessibility (r=0.95), ICT Utilisation (r=0.95) and Security Management (r=0.74) scales. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearsons product moment correlation and Multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance.

Respondents consisted of male (62.8%) and female (37.2%), with 55.3% aged 27.79±4.76 years. Officers on cadres’ basis were inspectorate (38.0%), superintendent (29.5%), corps assistant (27.3%) and commandant (5.2%). Computers ( =3.00), mobile phones ( =2.99), internet facilities ( =2.70), video camera ( =2.48), fax machines ( =2.08), interactive radio ( =2.20) were highly accessible and deployed for administration as against the criterion norm of = 2.00. Walkie-talkie ( =1.84), wrist phones ( =1.81), closed circuit television ( =1.71), spy video sunglasses ( =1.70), crime maps ( =1.64), electronic whiteboards ( =1.63), infrared cameras ( =1.53), and surveillance cameras ( =1.52) deployed during operations and intelligence gathering were rarely accessed and utilised. Accessibility (r = 0 .55) and utilisation (r = 0.54) of ICT had significant positive relationships with security management by the NSCDC. Accessibility and utilisation of ICT jointly predicted NSCDC’s security management (F(2, 936 )= 330.71; Adjusted R2=0.41), accounting for 41.3% of its variance. Accessibility (β=0.39) and utilisation (β=0.37) contributed to security management.

Computers, mobile phones, internet infrastructure were accessible and deployed for security operations by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Zone ‘F’ Command. Security-related activities require the processing of information, therefore, the management of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps should procure high quality technological tools that comply with global law enforcement standards for effective performance, so as to be better positioned to achieve her statutory mandate of curbing crimes and protecting Critical National Assets and Infrastructure.