CCTV: another first from Unilorin

One of the reasons for the uniqueness of the University of Ilorin is its innovativeness. Always ahead with learning-enhancing innovations like the one-student-one-ipad initiative of the Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali administration, the University is poised to blaze another trail in campus security with the planned surveillance coverage of its expansive campus by Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras. 

To be sure, Unilorin is already enjoying a measure of peace and harmony that is a luxury in many tertiary institutions in the country. Incidents of breakdown of law and order have become an anathema in the institution; cultism and sundry other anti-social vices have been banished while the cankerworm of indecent dressing has almost been exterminated. This much was attested to by the Director of the Kwara State Command of the Department of State Services (DSS), Mr. Abdullahi Shinkafi, when he visited the Vice-Chancellor recently. During the visit, on Thursday, August 13, 2015, the veteran spy chief commended the “level of peace and security on the campus”. Apart from making learning, the primary reason for all students' sojourn here, a delight, the peaceful atmosphere in Unilorin has also made staying on the campus a compulsive desire for all.

But the existence of a few bad eggs, even in a supposedly perfect environment, is a very high possibility. And so, the University security personnel still have to contend with incidents of petty thefts of items like laptops, mobile phones, money and other items in students' hostels and outside examination halls. Also, pockets of reckless driving, mostly by operators of commercial vehicles plying the campus route, are still being noticed with the occurrence of occasional road accidents inside the campus,

This is probably why the University authority does not want to toy with the cancer of complacency. Total security is achievable and it must be given all it takes to accomplish, the management seems to be thinking. This, to me, is the spirit behind the plan to install CCTV cameras all over the campus for the main reason of nipping petty crimes  and anti-social behaviour in their buds.

The institution's Computer Services and Information Technology (COMSIT) Directorate is already putting critical measures in place to actualise this plan. Its Director, Prof. Musa Isiaku Ahmed, disclosed at a recent engagement that the University management “intends to cover the entire campus with the CCTV surveillance equipment to prevent crime and promptly track down criminal elements on the University campus”.                         

The COMSIT Director said that already some strategic places, like the Senate Building, had been covered by the CCTV surveillance camera, even though there is need for some upgrading of the existing analogue version, which doesn't record. He said that the Directorate was planning to install ultra-modern CCTV gadgets that could record and it would be possible “to play back what had taken place six months ago”.

Prof. Ahmed disclosed that the installation of the new CCTV equipment had commenced at the institution's Network Operation Centre (NOC) while the Directorate of COMSIT is completely covered with the CCTV camera. He added that with time, “we intend to move gradually to the student areas as well as the Main Gate”.

Indeed, if and when the plan fully materialises, Unilorin will likely become, or close to becoming, an institution in its own class, where criminally-minded individuals would fear to tread -- a real bastion of peace and serenity.