Nigeria Police, Media Concepts, AMDON Partner To End Stolen Cars Trade

FUNSHO AROGUNDADE

Dr. Babatope Agbeyo, Chairman, Cornfield Group; Prince Ajibola Adedoyin, President of AMDON and ACP Omodehinde at the signing of the MOU in Lagos Thursday

An initiative to create the authentic data base of all auto dealers in Nigeria and their vehicles ready to be sold under the supervision of Nigeria Police was on Thursday, June 15 unveiled in Lagos.

The data base, an initiative of Media Concepts International Limited, a multimedia company that specializes in result-driven ICT solutions, and the Association of Motor Dealers of Nigeria (AMDON) was consummated after the formally signing of an agreement at the Lagos headquarters of Media Concepts International Limited. 

Describing the signing as historic, Chairman of Media Concepts International Limited, Dr Babatope Agbeyo, expressed confidence that with the support from development partners, Nigeria would meet her targets successfully in nipping vehicular crimes in the bud through ICT driven methodology such as the one unveiled today by the company.

“We are making another history in this country today by putting pens and papers together specifically to safe businesses and human lives and other vehicular crimes in Nigeria through a painstaking effort driven by ICT,” Agbeyo said.

He added, “Meanwhile, today is not when this milestone will be truly celebrated, the celebrations will eventually come when the benefits of this innovation are practically felt by all concerned stakeholders in Nigeria.”

In his speech at the event, Prince Ajibola Adedoyin, President of AMDON noted that the initiative is novel in the auto industry.

“We have been on this for almost four years before it was eventually brought to life today and we are proud of this deserving success story. There is no doubt that it will help reduce crimes and make it a disincentive to men of the underworld,” Adedoyin said.

According to him, there have been all sorts of people claiming to be members of AMDON yet with no record with the association.

“We want all these menace to stop and this is also crucial to national security. We need to sanitise auto dealership in Nigeria, for us at AMDON this authentic data base for both membership and the vehicles is a win-win situation for us,” Adedoyin added.

The auto dealers’ association president noted that the Police in the event of car theft can now swing into action to make recovery through seamless and automated process.

He said they can as well verify from their end who are really licenced by AMDON and check the activities of middlemen who give bad names to real car dealers in Nigeria.

Also speaking at the signing-in ceremony, the representative of the Police, Assistant Commissioner of Police Ayotunde Omodeinde, hailed the collaborative efforts of relevant stakeholders which he believed will greatly help the Police to detect and curb crimes.

“Because often times, stolen vehicles find their way to car dealers and car dealers end up selling stolen vehicles without their knowledge often times,” said Omodeinde.

He continued, “And police, in the course of our investigation, when we trace those stolen vehicles to the car dealer, the car dealer who has already paid for the vehicle end up losing their money because police will recover the vehicle and the car dealer will also suffer a lot of inconveniences.

“So police working with AMDON will ensure that when vehicles are brought to them, they will be able to cross-check whether those vehicles are stolen or not before they receive it or buy it.

“And whenever a stolen vehicle comes to AMDON car port, the AMDON member has a duty to inform the police discreetly so that the police will be able to recover the vehicle.

Omodehinde, who is in charge of the Police ICT Department, affirmed that this latest initiative will complement the existing Police BCMR meant to check and detect crime.

“Police BCMR is a technological means of attaching automobile owner’s special and unique biological characteristics (biometrics) and personal data to their vehicles for authentication, protection, crime prevention and detection purposes which operates on a smart card and handheld card reader,” he said.

Police BCMR, which is one of the numerous milestones recorded by Media Concepts International Limited, is a specially developed enterprise solution for centralization and validation of vehicle documents in order to create and authenticate the database for police operational use in crime management nationwide.