By Sa’adiyyah Adebisi Hassan
The President just announced the deployment of 5,000 AI-powered cameras to tackle insecurity in Plateau.
Let’s be honest this is not how serious countries fight insecurity. This is how governments do public relations, not warfare.
You don’t broadcast your surveillance architecture to the same people you’re trying to catch. The moment you announce it, you’ve already compromised it.
Terrorists are not fools. They adapt faster than governments that talk too much.
In a Serious Country, This Never Happens
#Look at how nations that actually understand security operate:
🇮🇱 Israel
When Israel upgrades surveillance in sensitive regions, they don’t hold press conferences about it.
They deploy quietly, monitor behavior, and strike before threats materialize.
You hear about it after success, not before deployment.
🇺🇸 United States
The U.S. runs one of the most sophisticated surveillance systems in the world – facial recognition, signals intelligence, predictive tracking.
Do they announce locations, capabilities, and deployment strategy? No.
Even Congress often doesn’t get full details. That’s how sensitive it is.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
The UK has one of the highest densities of CCTV cameras globally.
Yet, operational upgrades and intelligence integrations are classified or limited.
You don’t tell criminals where the blind spots are because that’s exactly what public announcements do.
🇦🇪 Dubai
Dubai is a surveillance state in the smartest way possible.
AI cameras, facial recognition, predictive policing – but everything is deployed with precision and silence.
Criminals don’t know where the system begins or ends. That uncertainty is the weapon.
#What Nigeria Just Did Wrong
Announcing “5,000 AI cameras” publicly creates immediate problems:
You alert terrorists to change routes, patterns, and methods
You expose the scale and possible limitations of your system
You reduce the element of surprise
You turn a security operation into a media headline
This is not strategy. This is exposure.
#What Should Have Been Done Instead
If Nigeria were serious about security, this is how it should look:
1. #Silent Deployment
No announcement.
Install, integrate, monitor. Let results speak later.
2. #Intelligence Fusion
Cameras alone don’t stop terror.
They must be connected to:
National ID databases
Telecom tracking
Financial intelligence
Real-time command centers
Without integration, cameras are just expensive decorations.
3. #Behavioral Surveillance
Modern security is not just about faces it’s about patterns:
Movement anomalies
Repeated routes
Suspicious clustering
That’s what AI is for. Not press statements.
4. #Rapid Response Units
Surveillance without response is useless.
If a threat is detected:
Units must respond within minutes
Arrest or neutralization must be immediate
Anything slower is failure.
5. #Target the Network, Not Just the Foot Soldiers
Every attack has:
Financiers
Informants
Suppliers
Ideological backers
If those people are untouched, cameras won’t save anyone.
6. #Total Information Control
Security strategy should be need-to-know only.
Not:
Public speeches
Media briefings
Political announcements
War is not governance theatre.
#The Hard Truth for President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
Mr. President, insecurity is not solved by announcements. It is solved by: Silence, Precision, Intelligence, Ruthlessness. Right now, Nigeria is treating a war like a press conference. And that is dangerous.
Every time the government talks too much about security plans, the enemy listens, learns, and adjusts.
In serious countries, citizens feel safer not because leaders speak more, but because results are visible and strategies are invisible.
If Nigeria truly wants to win this war, it must stop performing security and start practicing it.
Because in this fight, loose talk is not harmless -it costs lives.
Insecurity is not solved by speeches, press conferences, or political stunts.
It is solved by:
Silence. Precision. Intelligence. Ruthless execution.
Stop performing security.
Start practicing it.
Because in war against terror, loose talk costs lives.
● Hassan posted this on social media.
