Friday 23 August 2013

Applying The Call In Nigeria


It’s exactly 2.11am, I’m all jittery, nervous, restless and can’t contain myself all because I'm watching The Call (2013) with Halle Berry playing the lead role and Morris Chestnut’s love interest. At a point, I had to do a little laundry while watching just to dissipate some of the charged energy.


For those who haven't seen the movie, it's about a serial murderer who kidnaps young blond girls, torments and buries them out in a prairie but he sure met his waterloo when he kidnapped Casey who calls 911 from the trunk of the moving car she was stashed in and that's where the action and my misery started. First of all,  She was using a disposable phone, you know those off the counter type they use outside the country which made it difficult to trace her exact location. Anyway, the movie made me think deeper and faster than I ordinarily would have done, like:

1.  NCC and Telecoms have practically forced us to register our sims, so what next?

2. How will this collective information be used and for who's benefit?

3. Apart from the instant photos and thumbprints taken at the registration centers, how sure are they that the rest of the information given are correct? Like Address and Occupation.

4. Does Nigeria have the satellite coverage to track a call and exact location at every given time?

5      5. Can kidnap victims be able to call emergency numbers and get an immediate positive response? I'm not talking of a state owned facility but a national one.

6      6. Is there a way you can call up a car plate number and it shows details of the car and owner in Nigeria? Or even call up someone's name and it shows his personal and car details?

      7. How smart are our emergency operators and how smart can you be if you found yourself in a hostage situation? can you think outside the box?

      8. Do you realize if stashed in the trunk of a car that you can actually yank off the tail light wires  from inside, kick off the tail light itself and wave out through the hole so other road users can see someone's locked in?
9    
      9. Lastly can Nigeria and Nigerians be smart enough to articulate these grey areas within our security system and do the needful?

10 comments:

  1. American movies make us think deep. Thank God our very own home movies are beginning to catch up too. There is so much to learn from spy, detective, and crime movies. Our movie industry (also speaking to myself as a writer) should take a tip from these guys.
    About the telecom guys. Well well, my sister you know us now. Every new and decorated idea has a fraudulent motive. What happened to the National I.D card initiative? This country has no intentions what so ever to do anything positive about security.

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  2. Well, em... We have a weather satellite, I think. Maybe a caller's location can be identified via weather condition.
    - call came in from a sunny region
    - call came in from a raining zone
    - call came in from a thunder storm locality
    - call came in from a cloudy area
    - call came in during "uguru"...

    Sypho 1

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    Replies
    1. are u a comedian? ILNSPDP (I laugh nearly shout PDP)!

      Delete
  3. 1. NCC succeeded in getting people's contact for adverts, since after registration i get adverts like 89 in a day, i wake up everyday to deleting chunks from my phone.

    2. there is nothing like emergency in naija

    3. we have not reach the level of calling plates numbers, driver's license or driver's name. but very soon we will have no option, technology will take us there, if we like it or not!

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  4. The truth is, everything is the US and the West relies on one thing. A reliable electronic Database. Do we have any? Yes and no... Who has one in the Nigeria? The Banks and by extension the CBN. Does the law enforcement agencies do? No, they dont. And that's what ultimately matters. I got a security number from MTN and accessed my online MTN Profile. Despite all the information I provided when I registered my SIM, I only saw my name in there, and I asked, 'what's the point'? Casey could be rescue because she has an identity. In Nigeria, we hardly do... But of course, we can kick out taillights and reallights. I trust we can.

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  5. I jst dey SMH for nigeria. We still hv a long way to go. My prayer is that we get there. When I see foreign movies and try a comparison with what Naija has to offer, whew!
    It is well

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  6. Wonderful movie review and comparison to our social milieu, the truth is that Nigeria presently has the capacity to achieve more than half the security measures you mentioned, but we are just lazy to do it. Most of the data they collected have been dumped somewhere, there's no data base for anything on a local, state or national scale, most things are on paper in this day and age...I remember while in school, I came to the conclusion that the Nigerian university system with its archaic data system was purposed to make students fail, everything has to be a struggle, violence, shout, halla, tackle, shine eye...For instance, apart from the National ID card, Voter's Registration and SIM Reg that has run on a national scale, most Universities and private schools have a database of students on an electronic level, that in itself can be useful for somethings. The crazy part is that the security agents now rely on Facebook and Twitter to track crooks (na una papa build am?) Skuri

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  7. this na federal government JAMB questions expo

    ReplyDelete

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