Dapchi girls’ abduction questions Nigeria’s investment in satellite technology

The continued attacks by Boko Haram insurgents in some parts of the Northeast, and recent abduction of over 100 school girls from the Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, is eliciting some concern on the effectiveness of Nigeria’s investment in satellite technology.
Nigeria’s communication satellite, NigComSat1R which is presently in orbit as replacement for its predecessor which de-orbited a year after its launch is said to possess capabilities that should make it a valuable asset for security and the fight against terrorism. Till date, this does not appear to be the case as brazen attacks by insurgents do not suggest Nigeria’s security services have superior intelligence at their disposal.
Nigerian Communications Satellite Ltd which manages Nigeria’s satellite tweeted on January 16 that a delegation from the army visited its ground station “with the aim of collaborating with NIGCOMSAT in utilizing the services of NigComSat1-R”.
The tweet accompanied by a photograph of officers from the army which visited its facility included Temidayo Olukoju, a Major General and Corps Commandant, Nigeria Army Signal Corps, and Olumide Ojo, a Colonel & Director of ICT.
The Muhammadu Buhari led government has instead of making the present satellite more useful, entered into a $550 million deal this year with the China Exim Bank, and satellite manufacturer, China Great Wall, for the development of two new communication satellites.
While the security forces comprising army, air force and other agencies often lacked intelligence and capacity to nip attacks in the bud, a supposed counterinsurgency attempt in January last year, saw an air force attack killing over 100 civilians in an IDP camp; killed in cold blood even after becoming victims of terrorist attacks.
NigComSat on its website describes the NigComSat-1R’s Ka-band as being capable of addressing “military warfare simulations, internet services, secure data distribution, backhauling, airspace intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance by the Nigerian security, broadcasting services and telephony services.”
It also stated that its L-band has global coverage, making it possible to offer global services and “has applications which include; Security Search and Rescue (SAR), Reconnaissance, mapping, target tracking, etc.”
Till date, there has however been no evidence to show this has translated into results beyond the texts on NigComSat’s brochure.
Conversely, other countries have in the face of insurgencies and terrorism, used their satellite systems and other technology available at their disposal, in securing the lives and properties of citizens.
“If we reference other agencies that deal with the protection and security of their citizens, then Nigerian equivalents, also need to adopt some of the techniques, strategies and especially the technology adopted and deployed over Satellite technology,” Olusola Teniola, president, Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) wrote in an emailed response to BusinessDay’s enquiries.
“Most of the major commercially built Satellites already offer communication and connectivity to hard to reach terrains on the global map (with the most popular one being Google Maps) based on GPS technology. So by inference, our NIGCOMSAT1R has all the technology required to do the same in the rural areas of the country and further afield. The data collated from the field by the Satellite can be fully analysed by security operatives.”
Teniola however also stated that “The notion that NIGCOMSAT1R is not being used to combat terrorism is an interesting hypothesis, however, as with intelligence, the information may be classified and hence unverifiable. The Satellite technology is there to be used and already well advanced in the deployment of military applications around the world.”
Salih Hakan Can, an assistant professor of Criminal Justice at Pennsylvania State University, and a retired police chief from the Turkish National Police, and Mark Leipnik, an associate professor of Geography at Sam Houston State University and Director of the GIS lab of the Texas Research Institute for Environmental Studies at SHSU, in their paper on “Use of Geographic Information Systems in Counterterrorism”, also highlighted the fact that satellite systems offer a powerful tool in the war against terrorism.
According to them, “GIS and related technologies can serve as a tool for intelligence analysis; can be employed to simulate scenarios for terrorist attacks to identify and, ideally, to harden targets; GIS can be used to coordinate the immediate response to an actual attack by providing information on the proximity of attacked sites to first responders—police, fire, medical, and other resources; GIS as well as GPS and airborne technologies such as aerial videography, infrared detection, and laser detection and ranging (LIDAR) can be used to assess the short-term and intermediate-term effect of an attack and aid in establishing the boundaries of evacuation zones, locating evidence, locating and rescuing victims, and controlling fires and minimizing the potential for secondary damage from delayed explosions, building collapse, and so on.
“Lastly, GIS, and in particular satellite remote sensing and digital aerial imagery, can be used to coordinate retaliation in the form of air strikes and to assist a whole range of more subtle military, paramilitary, and law enforcement responses,” wrote Can and Leipnik, in the paper published in the Professional Issues in Criminal Justice journal.
In places like Nigeria’s northeast with considerable open desert, satellite imagery for reconnaissance and surveillance of terrorist activities if truly deployed in the interest of national security, could help the country win the ongoing war against terrorism.
Jude Chukwu, the Army spokesperson was contacted for comments on the usefulness of NigComSat-1R in the war against terrorism but promised to call back with a response which did not happen as at publication.