ABSTRACT
The problems of narcotic drugs in Nigeria as manifested in the
cultivation, trafficking and abuse of drug is of increasing concern to the
government, social researchers, and other stakeholders. The impact of illicit
drugs continues to threaten the economies and social structures of both
producing and consuming countries. This paper presents an implementation
framework for a reliable, efficient and mobile real- time crime information
system (CIS) that will help to maintain instant flow of information between the
general public and NDLEA. This application solved this problem through a
just-in-time flow of crime information from an informant who could be an
individual, corporate body or any other government agency to the NDLEA office
for a necessary action. This kind of information if handled properly will lead
to illicit drug supply suppression hence reduce its availability as well as
other substances of abuse. It will also help in drug demand reduction which
result in a decline in the consumption of illicit drug substances.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Drugs, alcohol and substance abuse have become an
ever-increasing problem in Nigeria with serious health and social implications.
The cultivation of hard drugs, its abuse together with trafficking has become a
source of worry to the government and the society at large. The proliferation
of hard drugs and its subsequent abuses has led to mental illness among young
people and the deterioration of the health of the nation’s active population.
Baniyi( 2008) said that drug and alcohol abuse contribute significantly to the
incidence of domestic aggression, violent crimes, broken homes and iuvenile
delinquency. The Federal Republic of Nigeria, in reaction to the adverse
effects of drug abuse on the health of users and also in fulfillment of the
country’s international obligation, as a signatory to the 1988 UN Convention,
which recommended separate bodies to lead the onslaught against the ravaging
drug menace in many parts of the world, set up the NDLEA through Decree No. 48
of 1989, NDLEA (2011).
This agency as provided in the decree was charged with
eliminating the growing, processing, manufacturing, selling, exporting, and
trafficking of hard drugs and psychotropic substances. Since the establishment
of NDLEA, despite all the adopted strategies geared towards the control of
narcotic drug abuse, illicit drug trafficking is still on the increase. Hence,
the question on the lips of everyone is why has the NDLEA been visibly
inefficient in drug prevention and control? Generally speaking, criminological
insights have shown that very little of the crimes committed in the society are
known to law enforcement agencies. Consequently, few of the criminals are
arrested and prosecuted and the impacts in our society include premature death,
crime, mental health disorders, transmission of HIV/AIDS and other blood borne
viruses.
According to Gyong and Tanimu (2010), less than half
of the crimes committed in America each year are reported to the police, and of
those recorded by the police, only about 20% are “cleared by arrest”, still an
arrest by no means guarantees prosecution and conviction. Similarly, crimes in
Nigeria are underdetected, underreported, under-recorded and therefore
underestimated. One major cause of these problems is lack of timely flow of
crime information and effective collaboration between the NDLEA and the general
public.
The illicit drug problem has persisted because we have – not devised a
working solution to the problem. Thus, this work is set to design and develop
an effective and efficient mobile real-time crime information system for NDLEA
that will enable an informant in any part of the country to instantly send any
NDLEA’s crime related information as soon as it is detected. This will to a
large extent bridge the communication gap between the agency and the general
public and also reduce illicit drug-related activities to the barest minimum.
This system will enable the agency to generate annual
reports that have records of crimes according to regions, states or cities
resulting to accurate statistics to draw analysis such as information of a
case, the year a crime was committed, a location with highest crime, age range
that normally commit maximum number of crime and the type of crime they commit,
officer who investigated the crime. These factors will help in fighting crime
effectively.
The rest of the work is summarized as follows: Section
2 presents the literature Review; section 3 disuses the system Analysis and
Design; section 4 deals with the system Implementation and Discussion of
Findings. Section 5 presents the conclusion and recommendation.