Nigeria’s police Vigilant app raises questions about cycle of duplicate fraud reporting platforms

On September 1, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) launched the Vigilant App, a digital platform that allows Nigerians to report suspected financial fraud, upload evidence, track their cases and receive feedback.

The Force’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Department developed the app with stakeholders across the financial sector. The police say the platform is designed to improve how financial fraud is reported and how cases are handled with relevant institutions.

Olatunji Disu, the Inspector-General of police (IGP), described the app as part of the Force’s digital transformation. “The policing environment is changing rapidly. Crime is becoming more sophisticated, information moves faster, and citizens increasingly expect public institutions to be accessible and responsive to technology. The Nigeria police Force must, therefore, evolve with these realities.”

That sounds straightforward. But Vigilant is not entering an empty system.

We’ve been here before with the police

The police have spent years trying to use digital platforms to make it easier for Nigerians to report crimes. In 2017, the police launched Hawk Eye, an anonymous crime-reporting platform that allowed Nigerians to send information through video, voice or text. Lagos-based ICT firm Web Assets Nigeria Limited, along with other technology partners, developed the system. It was initially piloted in the Federal Capital Territory, with plans to expand to Lagos and other states.

The police said patrol vehicles equipped with mobile terminals would receive reports from a command-and-control centre for quicker responses. But by 2019, TechCabal reported that Hawk Eye had largely become defunct, raising an early example of what happens when a Police technology initiative does not survive beyond its initial rollout.

In 2021, the Force introduced Rescue Me, another platform designed to connect Nigerians to the Police Command and Control unit during emergencies and to allow them to report crimes. The app offers emergency alerts, crime reporting, reporting police officers, navigation, and ambulance requests. The Police said it was designed to facilitate rapid responses to crimes and emergencies. The app currently has more than 100,000 downloads on Google Play.

HumAngle reported in 2022 that users had already registered on the platform, although some raised concerns about how much personal information it requested. The Police defended the data collection, saying the information was needed to assist and that access to users’ photos could help identify people in danger.

The platform has also had to deal with a high volume of alerts. In March 2022, the Police said it had received more than 10,000 fake emergency alerts through Rescue Me, which created traffic on the platform and affected genuine callers.

I also downloaded the app to test the registration process. I requested an OTP three times, and as of the time of writing, I have yet to receive one.

Rescue Me, therefore, is not simply another Police app that was launched and forgotten. It has users, remains available and has been used to send emergency alerts. But its history also shows that a digital reporting channel is only one part of the response system.

The police also have a dedicated National Cybercrime Centre (NCCC) reporting system. Its current portal allows people to submit cybercrime reports, upload evidence and track cases. The NCCC describes the system as an end-to-end cybercrime investigation and victim-support platform operating 24/7 across all 36 states. It currently reports more than 146,000 reports filed and more than ₦58 billion in recovered assets.

That makes the NCCC more than just another historical police app. It is an existing system that already provides some of the functions Vigilant is introducing.

Nigerians already have places to report fraud

By a conservative count, Vigilant is at least the fourth citizen-facing reporting platform the police have introduced in under a decade.

None of this means Vigilant is destined to repeat that history. But it does mean the value of the new app has to be measured by more than whether Nigerians can submit a complaint from their phones. For financial fraud, the police are also not the only institution Nigerians can turn to.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), for example, has Eagle Eye, an online reporting platform designed to ease the reporting of economic and financial crimes. When it launched in July 2021, then-EFCC chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa described it as the first application of its kind by a Nigerian law-enforcement agency. The EFCC later said the platform was producing a steady stream of intelligence and had become a springboard for several investigations. The agency has continued to maintain the platform, which allows users to submit reports and upload evidence.

Banks are another part of the system. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has required financial institutions to maintain fraud desks since 2015, giving customers a direct channel to report suspected fraud. Banks also participate in the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF), which the CBN established to improve information sharing on electronic fraud across the financial industry.

NIBSS operates an Industry Fraud Reporting Portal through which financial institutions submit and share fraud information. But participation has not been universal. In 2023, NIBSS said only 60 of 163 profiled financial institutions submitted fraud data through the portal.

The CBN has also continued to tighten expectations for financial institutions. In January 2026, it said banks had agreed, through the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum, to reduce fraud response times to under 30 minutes as part of efforts to curb electronic fraud. The target was presented as a way to improve the chances of tracing and recovering stolen funds, although the CBN has not yet published industry-wide data showing whether banks have consistently met it.

For customers, the CBN advises those who suspect they have been victims of fraud to contact their financial institution immediately so it can freeze affected accounts and attempt to reverse unauthorised transactions.

This means Vigilant is entering a system where fraud can already be reported to banks, shared across financial institutions, and reported to law-enforcement agencies.

The more interesting question is, what happens after the report? That matters because Nigeria’s fraud problem is not simply about victims having nowhere to complain.

In 2025, digital payment fraud losses fell to ₦25.85 billion ($17.2 million) from ₦52.26 billion ($34.8 million) in 2024, according to NIBSS. But the organisation also said fraud reporting declined by 34% in the fourth quarter of 2025. NIBSS has warned that unreported fraud makes it harder to track and investigate cases.

Getting people to report fraud remains important. But once a report is made, the speed at which information moves among the victim, the financial institution, and law enforcement can determine whether money can still be traced or recovered.

The problems that follow a fraud report

In September 2025, the Police Special Fraud Unit (PSFU) held a meeting with the CBN, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), NIBSS, banks, and fintech companies to discuss fraud investigations. CP Rose Chollom Dung, then Commissioner of Police of the PSFU, identified several problems affecting investigations, including delays in responding to official requests, bureaucratic bottlenecks during urgent situations, inadequate real-time information sharing, and gaps in inter-agency collaboration. The Unit said these problems affected the efficiency and effectiveness of fraud investigations, pointing to a problem beyond reporting.

A victim may already have reported a fraudulent transaction to their bank. The bank may have information about where the money went. The police may need that information to investigate or trace the funds. Other financial institutions may need to act quickly.

If those institutions do not share information quickly enough, does a new platform to submit the original complaint necessarily solve the problem?

So what does Vigilant actually add?

The police’s answer appears to be coordination. The Force says it was developed with financial-sector stakeholders and is intended to support coordination with relevant institutions. But those basic functions are not entirely new within the police.

The NCCC already allows Nigerians to report cybercrime, submit evidence, and track cases. Its current platform states that investigators can handle cybercrime cases, conduct digital forensics, and support victims. So reporting, evidence submission, and case tracking do not, on their own, explain why Vigilant is needed.

The more significant difference is its stated connection to the financial sector. The app’s Google Play listing describes Vigilant as a real-time fraud intelligence, post-transaction tracing, and rapid recovery platform for banks, fintechs, telecommunications companies, insurers, and corporates.

If that integration works as intended, Vigilant could address a weakness in the existing fraud-response system.

But the public information around the launch does not yet show exactly how that coordination works in practice. It does not, for example, establish how quickly a report is routed to a bank, whether a report can trigger an immediate response from a financial institution, or how the police will measure response times through the platform.

I reached out to a source in the Police for clarification on how the platform connects with financial institutions and how reports are handled after submission, but the source declined to comment.

The ability to track a case is useful, but tracking is not the same as resolving it. The NCCC already offers case tracking. The ability to report from a phone is useful, but Nigerians already have several digital reporting channels.

Vigilant’s strongest case, therefore, is not that it gives Nigerians another place to complain. It is that it could make the handoff between the victim, banks, and law enforcement faster and more coordinated.

Another police initiative?

When it comes to police tech initiatives, a question of continuity arises. Sources within the police force who preferred to remain anonymous expressed little confidence in the Vigilant app and told TechCabal they hadn’t heard of it.

The concern is not necessarily that the police should stop building technology. It is about whether every new administration needs another platform when some existing systems already perform parts of the same job.

That concern is especially relevant because the police have already identified delays, information-sharing problems, and inter-agency bottlenecks as obstacles to fraud investigations.

A new app can make reporting easier. It cannot, by itself, make a bank respond faster, make an investigator act faster, or remove bureaucratic bottlenecks.

Vigilant does fill a possible gap, but it is not the access gap. Nigerians already have places to report fraud. Its real value will be determined by what happens after the report is submitted.

If Vigilant can connect victims, banks, and investigators quickly enough to improve tracing, response, and recovery, then the police will have added something meaningful to Nigeria’s fraud-response system. However, if the process after the report remains slow, another reporting platform will have changed the front door without changing what happens behind it.

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