UK-Based Nigerian researcher invents AI tool to identify bandits

Maureen Aguta

Nigeria might be on its path to peace again after a decade of fighting terrorism as a UK-based Nigerian, Yunusa Jibrin said he has leveraged on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to be able to identify bandits and their hideouts in Nigeria.

He said his findings, if adopted by the Federal Government, would help to direct the efforts of the military towards identifying and eliminating bandits wherever they may be hiding in the country.

Jibrin, who is a Master’s degree graduate in computer science from the University of Sussex, told Vanguard on Sunday that he leveraged AI-driven image synthesis to generate thousands of visual representations depicting bandits in desert environments.

He said that his research achieved remarkable accuracy in preliminary evaluations by employing the use of a Vision Transformer (VT) model to discern terrorist elements.

“I undertook an innovative approach, leveraging AI-driven image synthesis to generate thousands of visual representations depicting bandits in desert environments, complete with weapons and vehicles.

“Employing this synthesized dataset, I employed a Vision Transformer model to discern terrorist elements within the images, achieving remarkable accuracy in preliminary evaluations,” he said.

Offering his support, the computer guru from Gombe State who led a team of researchers from Federal College of Education (Technical) Potiskum, emphasized the need for a technology-backed warfare against terrorist element in Nigeria.

He further stated that he would partner with the federal government in the fight insecurity which is causing setback to the development of the country.

“Moving forward, efforts are underway to formalize these findings, with plans to publish and integrate the developed algorithms into the operational frameworks of the Nigerian government,” he added.