ADAPTATION OF BANKNOTE SECURITY FEATURES ON SOME AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS FOR PROTECTION AGAINST COUNTERFEITING

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Author

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Department of Environmental Design

ABSTRACT
This study is aimed at adapting banknotes security features on Ahmadu Bello University's sensitive documents in order to protect them against counterfeiting. This aim was achieved through the following objectives: 1. to study banknote security features for onward adaptation on Ahmadu Bello University’s sensitive documents. 2. To redesign some of the Ahmadu Bello University's sensitive documents by introducing multifarious security features on them. Primary data were collected based on an experimental research design and purposive sampling technique. Responses from the questionnaire were based on liker’s 5-pointscale. For the purpose of this study, purposive sampling technique was used. The main reason for using purposive sampling technique was to enable the researcher focus on particular characteristics of the population that are of interest. For this reason, the researcher x-rayed 86 different banknote security features globally, out of which 15 were selected for adoption on Ahmadu Bello University sensitive documents. Additionally, a total number of the 49 copies of questionnaire for printers and graphics designers were distributed to the top five security printing companies in Nigeria. Simple percentage and frequencies was used to analyze the data collected via the questionnaires. The studio work procedures are based on the following headings. They are exploration, developmental and production stages respectively. This study revealed that most of the valuable paper documents in Nigeria have little or no security features on them especially in the area of ink and paper. Moreover, banknote remain the most secured valuable paper document all over the world, the following banknote security components such as; paper, non-commercially available security ink, design and printing technique can easily be adopted on Ahmadu Bello University’s Sensitive documents for protection against forgery and counterfeiting.. These menaces have brought a great setback to national development. For this reason, there is need for serious and urgent efforts from graphic designers, researchers, indigenous ink producers, in-house paper mill companies and security printing industries to jointly tackle this ugly phenomenon for Nigeria to move forward. Finally, it’s recommended that Graphic designers, researchers, indigenous ink producers, in-house paper mill companies and security printing companies should jointly tackle the ugly phenomenon of forgery and counterfeiting for Nigeria to move forward. Moreover, courses on forgery and counterfeiting, piracy, faking, documents theft, security features, ink production, and paper security should be introduced to graphic designers and printers to take care of the present technological development.