Nigerian Army Resource Centre (NARC) Weekly Subject Experts’ Presentation was held at Hall C, TY Buratai Block, and Abuja. There was two presentation made by the Subject Experts Republic of China and South Africa.
The first presentation of the day was made by Maj Gen JA Orokpo (Rtd) subject experts on China. His presentation discussed on how China calls for artificial intelligence cooperation at summit, the Chinese delegation that attended the World Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit in the UK, called for exchange and cooperation among countries on AI safety and international governance issues and urged all sides for the representation of developing countries in the global governance of AI and constantly bridge the intelligence gap and governance capacity gap. The delegation further stated that in the context of multiple challenges to world peace and development of all countries should uphold a vision of common cooperation and sustainable security for the world and China accounted for nearly one-fifth of global private investment funding in 2021 attracting $17billion for AI startups.
In his analysis and lessons for Nigeria, Maj Gen JA Orokpo (Rtd) noted that, Nigeria can emulate China’s focus on nurturing AI talents through educational programmes, scholarships and research grants to build a skilled workforce and partnership between government, the academia and industry players is also to be considered and to prevent begin left behind in AI development, Nigeria should consider strategies such as investing in I and fostering R&D. the country can also seek collaboration with China and other nations to leverage expertise and resources.
Also, he recommended that federal Ministry of Communication and digital Economy to engage China and other leading Ai nations to leverage on their expertise and also invest in AI for defence, intelligence and counterterrorism to enhance national security.
The second presentation by Col OR Akerele (Rtd) subject expert South Africa. His presentation focused on how fake money most prevalent in KZL and Gauteng provinces, In South Africa fake money id referred to as Counterfeit Currency and are imitation notes or coins produced without legal sanction of the SARB. The South Africa police service and the commercial banks have been working together to combat counterfeiting of bank notes and coins. However, Kwazulu-Natal remains where fake and illicit bank notes are found, followed by Gauteng. Interesting, the R100 banknote is the most counterfeited and most circulated. The government has advise citizens to check for fake note and users should watch out for these features like, security thread, tilt, colour-changing ink, visual feature are identification of genuine banknotes.
In his analysis and Lessons for Nigeria, Col Akerele (Rtd) noted that in Nigeria CBN remains the sole issuer of legal tender and controls the volume of money supplied in the economy in order to ensure price stability. A major case occurred in February 2023 when the Nigeria government used currency note change over, delivering few of the new notes into circulation in an attempt to force citizens to use a newly created government sponsored central bank digital currency which led to extensive street protests with attendant effects on domestic and international trade, thus slowing down the economy.
He recommended that the Central Bank of Nigeria in conjunction with the EFCC should speedily prosecute all offenders with outstanding cases of currency counterfeiting and also the Nigerian Customs Service should evolve a policy to improve and intensify Cargo Inspection procedures at all sea ports, airports and land borders to prevent entry of printed counterfeit currencies.
