Few stories better capture the tragedy of leadership sabotaging systems through neglect, favouritism, and weak institutional culture than the fate of Nigeria’s National Public Security Communication System (NPSCS). What it shows is that when leadership undermines institutions, the centre can definitely not hold.
A project conceived as a backbone for modern policing, the $470 million project was meant to transform internal security, enhance coordination among agencies, and save lives. Instead, it has become a symbol of how ambitious national investments can be quietly ruined, not by war or disaster, but by governance failure.
When the NPSCS was initiated in 2008 under the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the vision was clear: a secure, digital, nationwide communication platform for the Nigeria Police Force and related security agencies. Awarded in 2010 to ZTE Corporation, the project combined Nigeria’s counterpart funding with a substantial loan from China’s EXIM Bank. It promised encrypted radio communications, command-and-control centres in all states, emergency call systems, surveillance cameras, and real-time tracking (features that many countries take for granted as essentials of modern security).
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On paper, it was revolutionary, but in practice, it became a textbook case of institutional decay. Initial implementation showed signs of life. Between 2012 and 2013, acceptance tests were conducted, personnel were trained, and parts of the system were commissioned in Abuja and Lagos. Even before the end of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, cracks had appeared. Funding for diesel to power base stations was inconsistent. Maintenance frameworks were weak. Integration across states and agencies was incomplete. By early 2014, before any change in government, the system was already failing.
What followed after the 2015 transition to President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration marked the steepest decline. Maintenance contracts lapsed, operational funding dried up, and no clear strategy was put in place to preserve or upgrade the infrastructure. As priorities shifted and institutional memory faded, the NPSCS slipped into official neglect. Facilities were abandoned, masts vandalised, equipment looted, and control rooms left to gather dust.
“The implications of this failure are profound. Nigeria entered a period of escalating insecurity (terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, and violent crime) without a functional national police communication backbone.”
The implications of this failure are profound. Nigeria entered a period of escalating insecurity (terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, and violent crime) without a functional national police communication backbone. During the years when Boko Haram reached peak territorial expansion and later when mass abductions surged, the police lacked a unified digital system to share intelligence, track suspects, or coordinate rapid responses across state lines. This is not a technical inconvenience; it is a structural handicap with real human costs.
Equally damaging is what the NPSCS collapse says about leadership and institutions in Nigeria. Successive administrations treated the project as a one-off hardware acquisition rather than a living system requiring continuous funding, skilled personnel, upgrades, and oversight. Procurement controversies, such as claims by the Bureau of Public Procurement in 2016 that due process was breached, further eroded confidence and discouraged decisive action. Once political ownership faded, the system was effectively left to die.
Public anger has grown as Nigerians confront worsening insecurity alongside visible reminders of wasted opportunity – dark CCTV poles, abandoned masts, and idle facilities. Civil society voices have rightly questioned how criminals impersonate police officers, evade tracking, and exploit the absence of a central data system. While some narratives oversimplify the collapse as a deliberate shutdown after 2015, a more sober assessment points to something more troubling: a long pattern of neglect across administrations.
This matters because it reveals a deeper national problem. When leadership prioritises favouritism, short-term politics, or regime distancing over institutional continuity, systems fail regardless of who is in power. The NPSCS was neither fully protected nor decisively reformed. It was simply allowed to decay.
Recent steps offer a cautious glimmer of hope. In 2023, the Federal Government acknowledged the scale of deterioration and inaugurated a multi-agency project management team to oversee repairs and upgrades, even as loan repayments continued on largely idle infrastructure. In 2025, the House of Representatives reopened investigations into segments of the project, signalling renewed legislative interest.
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But probes alone are not enough. The way forward must be institutional, not cosmetic. First, Nigeria needs an independent technical and financial audit of all NPSCS assets (what exists, what works, and what has been lost). Second, accountability must be transparent and cross-administrational. Blame-shifting only entrenches the cycle of decay. Third, any revived or replacement system must have ring-fenced funding for maintenance, training, and upgrades, insulated from political turnover. Finally, security infrastructure must be treated as national critical assets, not discretionary projects subject to neglect once the commissioning ceremonies are over.
As the world enters a New Year, we should realise that the collapse of Nigeria’s $470 million police communication network is not merely a story of wasted money but also a warning. Institutions, once undermined, are difficult and costly to rebuild. Leadership that sabotages systems, whether by action or inaction, ultimately sabotages public safety.
Until Nigeria learns to protect institutions beyond individual administrations, abandoned projects like the NPSCS will continue to haunt the landscape, silent monuments to opportunities lost and to lives that might have been saved if systems had been allowed to work.
