In this report, BusinessDay Investigations found that despite billions of naira appropriated and spent by the Federal Government on security technology, several facilities have been abandoned, while fresh funds continue to be allocated to systems whose operational status remains unclear. SODIQ OJUROUNGBE writes
Arnong Freda, a Ghanaian based in Abuja, thought the commute home from her house fellowship near Maitama would be short, little did she know it would be her end.
Like every other evening, Freda boarded a taxi home on July 1, 2025, and found four men already seated inside. Unknown to her, it was a taxi operated by criminals posing as commuters to rob passengers, popularly called ‘one-chance’, that would soon veer off its route.
Hours later, Freda was found near the Moshood Abiola Stadium along Abuja’s Airport Road, blindfolded and badly beaten. She was rushed to the National Hospital, where she died six days later.
By then, the men who took her had disappeared, leaving police detectives little to piece together about her final journey.
Her death was one of many one-chance incidents where victims disappear along highways and roads while those responsible are rarely caught.
On the highway, the only security infrastructure that could have captured her journey stopped working less than two years after installation.
Across the country, commuters have been ambushed, abducted, or attacked while their assailants vanish without a trace.
According to Nextier, an intelligence and research firm, in 2024 alone, 2,452 people were kidnapped, with national highways featured among locations vulnerable to abductions.
Between July 2024 and June 2025, SBM Intelligence recorded 997 kidnapping incidents involving at least 4,722 abducted people and 762 deaths.
Beyond kidnapping, security incidents claimed 17,109 lives between January 2024 and August 2025, including 5,840 civilians, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).
While the Nigeria Police Force said it is expanding its use of technology, including telecom surveillance and device tracking, to fight kidnapping and violent crimes, BusinessDay Investigations traced some of these spendings from contract awards and budget allocations to commissioning records and physical locations.
The trail revealed deteriorating infrastructure, abandoned projects, and a lack of maintenance despite continuous spending on repairs over the years.
The technology meant to close the gaps
The Nigerian government has continued to invest in technology to strengthen policing, monitor movements, connect police formations and support emergency responses.
In 2010, the National Public Security Communication System awarded a $470 million security project to Chinese technology company ZTE.
The project was designed as a nationwide communications network, with about 2,000 surveillance cameras for Lagos and Abuja, hundreds of base stations, emergency communication, e-policing infrastructure, and command-and-control capabilities.
Beyond the $470 million system, government spending on technology-driven policing continued through subsequent projects, including the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Smart E-Policing Infrastructure at Force Headquarters and State CID formations nationwide, as well as the establishment and expansion of the Nigeria Police Command and Control Centre.
The 2025 executive budget proposal alone earmarked more than N516 million for Smart E-Policing.
But the trail after the contracts, budget approvals, and commissioning ceremonies was unclear.
Remnants of $470m project in Lagos
Our correspondent traced some of the locations where the security gadgets were installed in Lagos.
The installations were built on tall poles fitted with CCTV cameras, solar panels, and equipment cabinets intended to power and support the systems.
At Johnson Jakande Tinubu Park in Alausa, a security guard said maintenance workers who regularly checked the camera and associated equipment stopped visiting about five years ago.
‘Until about five years ago, they were always coming to check the camera and everything. But they stopped coming years ago,’ said the guard, who has worked around the axis for more than seven years.
At the Lagos State Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, the signs of abandonment were more visible. Bundles of cables lay discarded beside the building, while some equipment cabinets had been left exposed to the weather.
Workers familiar with the installations told BusinessDay that the cables had been there for years. Around other facilities visited, vegetation had grown into and around the infrastructure, partly covering equipment that appeared to have been left without attention.
While some cameras and solar panels remained mounted, cables had been cut, removed or left hanging, and their equipment cabinets either damaged, left open or exposed to the weather.
BusinessDay observed cables lying in heaps beside some of the abandoned installations. At other locations, solar-powered surveillance cameras still stood above busy roads, while the equipment meant to support them below had deteriorated.
Billions budgeted for projects that ‘never started’
The uncertainty surrounding the abandoned security surveillance network did not end with the $470 million project.
Records examined by our correspondent for further investments in police technology showed that billions of naira continued to appear in federal budgets, while official project records give conflicting accounts of whether some of the projects had begun.
One of the projects was the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Modern Intelligent Smart E-Policing Infrastructure at the Force Headquarters in Abuja and State CID formations nationwide, tagged with budget code ERGP4103171.
The paper trail showed that the project code received allocations over several years, while the description attached to it changed.
In 2019, the project code received N122.37 million. The allocation rose to N602.27 million in 2020, followed by N134.63 million in 2021 and N825.43 million in 2022.
The 2023 budget records examined by BusinessDay listed the code as Smart E-Policing Infrastructure and provided N696.66 million, while the 2024 budget allocated N508.38 million.
The figures identified in those six budget years amount to about N2.89 billion.
While budget documents described the project as ongoing, there is no publicly available record that indicates whether the project was delivered.
BusinessDay Investigations observed a similar contradiction in the records of the Nigeria Police Command and Control Centre at Force Headquarters, Abuja.
The centre was publicly commissioned in 2019, yet the project-monitoring record for its establishment, under code ERGP4103135, continued to raise questions about its implementation status.
The 2020 Executive Budget Proposal, for instance, classified the establishment of the centre’s Phase 1 as an ongoing project and allocated N124.33 million to it.
Funding continued years after the commissioning. The 2025 Executive Budget Proposal earmarked N4.37 billion under the same project code for annual licensing, internet services, repairs and maintenance of Police Command and Control Centres.
Technology cost does not end with installation
The gaps in the records and infrastructure traced by BusinessDay also show that spending on security technology continues beyond installation to keep the systems operational.
The spending records obtained by this paper showed how the cost of security technology can continue long after installation.
It was observed that a system requires funds to operate and maintain it, and when equipment is allowed to deteriorate or fall out of use, further public money may be needed to restore or replace what had already been installed.
This responsibility falls within the work of the Nigeria Police Force’s ICT Department, which is responsible for deploying and maintaining communication networks and repairing police information and communications equipment nationwide.
For the three investments examined by BusinessDay, the trail moved in different directions.
It was discovered that while the $470 million NPSCS was completed before becoming dormant and later requiring revival, the Smart E-Policing project continued to receive budget allocations despite conflicting records about its implementation, and the Command and Control Centre was commissioned and later received fresh provisions for maintenance and expansion.
Findings by BusinessDay showed that the cost of security technology did not necessarily end when contracts were awarded or facilities commissioned.
Years later, government records were still carrying provisions for rehabilitation, maintenance and expansion, while parts of an earlier network had already deteriorated and the public trail for some later projects remained incomplete.
Meanwhile, security experts said the implications extend beyond project records and budget figures.
According to them, surveillance, communication and command systems are intended to preserve information and support responses when crimes occur. When those systems are unavailable, deteriorating, or difficult to account for, the gap can also affect what security agencies are able to trace afterwards.
Maintenance gaps weaken security technology
Timothy Avele, an OSINT and digital forensic consultant to the National Counter Terrorism Centre and the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), said the failure of security technology often begins with how maintenance is treated from the start of a project.
According to Avele, maintenance should be funded and contracted as part of the initial procurement, with clear obligations on contractors to keep systems operational.
He said reliable power and connectivity, trained local technical personnel, and equipment suited to Nigeria’s heat, dust, flooding, and power fluctuations were also necessary to keep the systems working.
He said when surveillance and communication systems become dormant, the consequences extend beyond damaged equipment.
‘When such systems go dormant, there are investigative gaps when incidents are not captured,’ Avele said.
He added that a command and control network is only as effective as its weakest operational point.
For security agencies, he said, the loss of functioning cameras, communication links or other connected infrastructure can reduce the information available when an incident occurs and make it harder to reconstruct what happened afterwards.
Avele, who is also the Group Managing Director of AGXII Intelligence and Investigations Ltd and a cybersecurity expert, said government should also maintain independent technical audits and a live register showing the location, condition and maintenance history of each installation.
He noted such records would help authorities distinguish between equipment that needs routine repairs and systems that genuinely require replacement.
He also linked the problem to how government tracks security technology over its lifetime.
According to him, procurement records should be followed through installation, operation, maintenance, rehabilitation and eventual replacement.
Without that trail, Avele said, the government may not know what equipment it has, what has failed or whether a system needs to be repaired or replaced.
This, he said, could allow repeated rehabilitation spending without a clear account of why the original system stopped working.
No response
On September 15, 2026, BusinessDay contacted CSP Anietie Iniedu, the Police spokesperson, via calls, text messages and WhatsApp, but received no response.
Twenty-four hours later, our correspondent reached out again, only to receive an automated reply stating he was unavailable and directing enquiries to his assistant via a number provided.
This Newspaper contacted the assistant, who in turn referred us to a contact identified as RC5 Koji FPRO.
Calls and messages sent to that contact had not been responded to as of the time of filing this report.
BusinessDay also sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Nigeria Police Force and the Ministry of Police Affairs on October 2nd; no response has been received after the seven-day timeframe required by law has lapsed.