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| Nigeria |
The birth of the space age has
spurred on a plethora of new ideas and ground-breaking technologies that
are used in day-to-day living.
In the light
of the global increase in the number and lethality of terrorist
attacks, it has become imperative that Nigeria, states, and private
citizens become more involved in a strategic vision to recognize,
prepare for, and if possible prevent such events.
Space is being used today for defence
purposes. The use of satellites to provide troops with vital field
information protects lives and contributes tremendously to successes on
the battlefield. There seems to be a cry against the weaponization of
space, but it is already being used for these purposes. Intercontinental
ballistic missiles use space to deliver their warheads. Satellites are
used by military forces around the world to gather intelligence, guide
missiles, and provide logistical information.
Nigeria should adopt Geophysical Ground
Penetrating Radar (GPR) solutions, resistivity and induced polarization,
seismic reflection/refraction, vibration monitoring and forensic
geophysics to combat crimes (from weapons or metallic barrels to human
burials and bunkers). Geophysical methods have the potentials for the
localization and mapping of buried objects beneath soil or the water.
Forensic geophysics is an evolving technique that is gaining popularity
and prestige in crime detection. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) employ
radar pulses to do underground mapping of large areas of interest.
Geophysical satellite imagery combined with the use of Geophysical
Information Systems (GIS) can be put to work to quickly identify and
track criminals in Nigeria. The
world has 20 countries with nuclear weapons technology. When these
nuclear warheads are placed into ballistic missiles, they use space for
the delivery.
For the national security of the Nigeria government, it is
necessary to explore, design, and develop many types of space-based
defence systems to eliminate the threat of nuclear missiles detonating
over Nigeria soil. Other missile defence systems such as sea and
land-based installations need to continually be deployed around the
globe to stop a missile in the first or second stage of its flight.
Space-based defence systems should be considered the last effort at
stopping a nuclear missile in the flight before detonation.
The use of geophysical methods,
especially those derived from seismological studies of the Earth, can
also provide information about remote events. Analysis of seismograms
produced by an explosion, for example, will show that a small initial
explosion was followed by a much larger explosion that produced
vibrations equivalent to those from an earthquake magnitude. This
information will be used to infer the size of the explosion. Nigeria should intensify effort
towards launching of spacecraft indigenously. We have to develop a
robust launch vehicle program. Fruitful co-operation with other space
faring nations, international borders and the developing world should be
one of the main characteristics of Nigeria space program.
Geoscience methods are increasingly being
utilised in criminal, environmental and humanitarian forensic
investigations, and the use of such methods is supported by a growing
body of experimental and theoretical research. Geoscience search
techniques can complement traditional methodologies in the search for
buried objects, including clandestine graves, weapons, explosives,
drugs, illegal weapons, hazardous waste and vehicles. Geophysical
satellite imagery combined with the use of Geophysical information
Systems (GIS) can be put to work to quickly identify and track criminals
in Nigeria and across the borders.
Forensic geophysics, defined as ‘the
application of physical methods related to legal investigations’ is
still uncommon in normal Nigeria police practice compared to more
conventional methods (aerial survey/ photographs and remote sensing,
site walking by anthropologists and archaeologists, cadaver dogs
excavation). Although more routinely used in engineering and
archaeological applications, near-surface geophysical techniques, and
particularly Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), have been used with varying
degrees of success to locate unmarked cemetery graves or mass graves
(such as in the Iraq case or the victims of the Spanish flu and
in murder investigations to locate shallow clandestine burials .
Because of the legally sensitive nature of the subject, little
background literature is still available on the use of geophysical
methods in criminal investigations.
Forensic geophysical investigations will
rapidly and non-invasively be utilised to survey a site, identify
anomalous areas for eventual excavations and even establish the
potential burial characteristics (e.g. target depth, orientation, size,
distribution and condition). Multi-disciplinary studies have shown to
improve the detection of clandestine burials. Locating individual
archaeological graves or clandestine cadavers after a long period of
burial is generally problematic, because of limited skeletal remains and
soil compaction. The existing published geophysical reports on
simulated clandestine graves either use a single technique, usually GPR
or bulk ground resistivity, which are considered to be the most
successful techniques under favourable ground conditions, or are related
to unrealistic sites.
The success of geophysical techniques to
locate a clandestine grave is very site and time dependent because of
variations in ground material type and distribution, soil water content,
local climate, season, and level amount of cadaver decomposition
(ranging from incomplete to skeletonised). Forensic geophysical datasets
in urban environments are particularly difficult to analyse and
interpret due to the often heterogeneous nature of survey sites that are
dominantly ‘made ground’ masking the often subtle geophysical response
from a clandestine. Several geophysical techniques over simulated urban
clandestine graves can be utilised in Nigeria.
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