The attention of the Nigeria Police Force has been drawn to your above stated editorial published on 6th August, 2015. Unfortunately, the content of your editorial is not a true representation of the Criminal Record and Fingerprint Project of the NPF.
The Inspector-General of Police, IGP Solomon Arase fdc, NPM recently at the Force Headquarters received the team of Chief of Police Officers Criminal Records Office (ACRO) who were on a scooping mission, part of which included the review of the existing NPF Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) and possible upgrade to enable interconnectivity with other existing data bases in Nigeria. Specifically, the visit among others was focused on;
- Review and map the current criminal justice processes in relation to the current exchange of criminality data and implementation plans and ways of improving the process
- Review and map the current IT Infrastructure and make any necessary upgrade required to enable the implementation of the Criminal Record Document Management System (CRDMS) and AFI.
iii. Book Record Conversion (BRC) of paper-based criminal records onto the CRDMS and link them to associated fingerprints on new/upgraded AFIS/AFIX tracker fingerprint
- Provide a new or upgrade the existing AFIS/AFIX Tracker solution to accommodate the BRC of paper-based fingerprint records.
No agreement or Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the IGP and the visiting team from the United Kingdom.
The visit was mainly to facilitate the upgrading of NPF’s current fingerprint capabilities and this project would be solely funded by the United Kingdom’s Government.
In as much as NPF is open to public accountability and criticism, a situation where information capable of misleading the public should not be encourage. Your correspondent attached to the FHQ is at liberty to seek clarification on issues so as to avoid this kind of misrepresentation in future.
CP EMMANUEL C. S. OJUKWU, psc
FORCE PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER,
FORCE HEADQUARTERS,
ABUJA
