The security of one of the most secured arena in Nigeria, the Presidential Villa was further stepped up last week.
Gaining entrance to the seat of power is no longer business as usual under the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
New security gadgets, Sagem MorphoAccess security gateways which electronically screen staff and visitors, became operational last week Monday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The machine’s rapidity and networking capabilities have been deployed to address security applications from one-door control to protection of buildings, vast infrastructures and government agencies across the globe.
Many seats of governments across the globe have similar gadgets in place to keep away unauthorized and unwanted visitors.
The gadget, which controls opening and closing of glass auto-gateways and steel doors, are placed at various locations in the Villa.
The projects, which started under former President Goodluck Jonathan and stayed too long on the drawing board, have finally seen the light of day.
The doors now only open to authorized staff and visitors who want to gain access to the President’s and Vice President’s offices’ wings and other key offices and facilities in the State House.
The global identification system has fingerprint access control, time and attendance terminal.
The glass gateway is expected to open only when a duly authorized staff’s finger print is scanned and identified by the machine. The gateway will not open if the machine could not identify the person’s biometrics in its database.
The system, which has been installed with accurate fingerprint sensor, is expected to be very fast and hitch-free.
It is expected to be as fast as between 0.7 and 0.9 seconds in the identification mode, carrying out detection, coding and matching at the same time.
When a duly accredited staff places his or her finger on the fingerprint panel, the machine’s monitor instantly displays ‘Remove finger analyzing…’, it then shows ‘Welcome’ and the ‘staff’s name’ followed by ‘Identified’ before the glass gateway is momentarily flung open for the staff to pass through.
When the index finger is not properly placed on the panel, the monitor displays ‘Move up’ asking the staff to properly place the finger.
With its multifactor authentication capacity, it can also encode badges and identity tags apart from capturing fingerprints.
This means that beside the fingerprints scanning, access can also be granted by simply swiping an authorized staff’s identity tag closed to the machine.
The new system have opsonic sensor installed that detects false fingerprints and immediately bar unauthorized staff or visitors from gaining access to the Villa.
With the capacity to have up to 50,000 users, at any given time, its integration into existing systems is supposed to be easy with in-built Power-Over-Ethernet (POE) and optional wireless LAN communication.
As the machines are already installed at the pilot gate and many points before the President’s and Vice President’s office doors, a new order is certainly settling in at the seat of power.
While the machines will now carry out independent and proper screening of staff and visitors to the Villa, the security personnel on duty may now have less to do by just concentrating more on monitoring usage of the machines by staff and visitors.
The security personnel are expected to act appropriately whenever any unauthorised person tries to beat the system.
Apart from identifying anyone carrying a fake identity card, the machines will also restrict movement of some staff not authorized to go beyond a certain point.
Movements of visitors without proper clearance from the authority will also be checked.
There is however a way out for security personnel on duty to allow visitors with proper authorization to have access whenever the machine fails to grant such persons access.
The security personnel at the point of entry can also press a button for the glass gateway to open for state governors and high profile visitors that don’t normally get visitor’s tag at the pilot gate.
But the machine is going to pose a new challenge to governors’ aides that normally accompany their bosses inside the Villa without visitors’ tags.
Not only unauthorized persons are expected to face challenges in gaining entrance to the Villa, the first week of the machines’ operation also posed some challenges to some authorised staff and visitors.
Unlike before, the staffs sort of experience some delays before gaining entrance, as the doors only swing open when the person has been screened and cleared by information already stored in the database.
Cabinet members and high profile visitors are not exempted in the new order.
One of the first cabinet members who went through the new system was the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, and the Minister of Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah.
They experienced slight delays with the machines last week Monday morning when going to the Vice President’s office for the Economic Management Team meeting.
Excited with the new system, Adeosun asked one of the security personnel on duty, “How are we going to get the card?
The security personnel told her to see the Chief of Staff.
The machine, the following day, also continued to screen staff and visitors unhindered.
They were however put to maximum use on Wednesday as almost all the Ministers and other cabinet members turned up for the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting chaired by President Buhari.
While staff and authorised visitors will soon get used to the new order, the full operation of the machines are clear message to those who have no business with the seat of power and unwanted guests to stay away.