Pat Utomi Advocates Drone Surveillance on Highways to Curb Insecurity

Political economist, Prof. Pat Utomi, has called for the deployment of drones to monitor Nigeria’s highways as part of renewed efforts to tackle rising insecurity across the country.

Utomi made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday, urging state governors to work together to adopt modern security strategies.

He expressed concern over what he described as a poor national attitude toward addressing insecurity, arguing that protecting major highways should not be difficult if treated as a priority.

“How many highways do we have? We do not have a lot of highways,” he said. “There should be aerial surveillance—drones over those roads. Looking at the edges of the roads, whoever is inside the bush, they will see them long before anybody tries to come out and attack.”

Utomi also questioned the continued use of static checkpoints, describing them as ineffective. Instead, he proposed mobile policing units to constantly sweep major routes.

“We should literally have rolling roadblocks—two, three police vehicles on this side and this side, a couple of metres apart, just moving,” he said.

According to him, multiple teams of armed police vehicles patrolling stretches of highways such as the Benin–Ore road would significantly deter criminal activity and improve response times.

Utomi urged authorities at all levels to embrace innovation, noting that modern technology and coordinated policing could drastically reduce highway insecurity.