The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has established an Emergency Communication Centre (ECC) in Kaduna to ensure quick response to emergency calls.
The commission also announced 112 as the new national emergency code for Nigeria.
Speaking at the end of a dispatcher training for emergency response agencies, organised by Four D Associates Limited in collaboration with the commission, Bashir Idris, Executive Director in charge of projects at the NCC, said the pilot project is a federal government initiative to address emergency situations.
He noted that “some of the emergency numbers of the police are eleven digits numbers and it is difficult for people to remember such numbers in times of emergency.
“You are aware of the 911, Nigeria deserves a three digit number. We have resolved for 112 to be our national emergency code number that would be used to call from any part of the country, depending on where the response units are.
“In Kaduna State, we have just conducted training for those who are going to manage the centre. Anybody in an emergency situation, can call 112, it is an easy number to remember.
“It does not matter whether you have airtime on your phone or not, it is toll free. When you call 112, it will be picked up at the centre and transmitted to the relevant agency. If it is a fire incident; it will be transmitted to the fire service station in Kaduna,” he said.
Idris explained that all distressed calls to the centre would be routed to the relevant agencies concerned for prompt respond.
He said if it is issue that relates to road safety, the call would be transmitted to the agency concerned for prompt action.
“We have equipment that will enable us have 24 hour power supply. We have two standby generators, the question of the centre running down will not arise” he said.
Also speaking, Executive Secretary of the Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Mr. Ben Kure, said with the establishment of the centre and the new emergency code, insurgents, armed robbers and kidnappers would have no hiding place.
“It means, upon receiving information about any emergency, we would be reached within a twinkling of an eye and the response time would be swift.
“It is going to cover the 23 local government areas because we have been given the desktop that have been programmed to respond to the national code 112.
“The would be no issue of network problems because they are highly connected to communication system.
“We will keep on training our personal to embrace the technologies,” Kure said.
Earlier in address rounding up the training, Managing Director of Four D Limited, Mr. Okey Ikpe, said emergency response agencies that participated in the training include the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Nigerian police, Nigerian Army, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), fire service, army and National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to effectively handle different types of emergencies.
He said the centre has call management and dispatch applications, routers, switches, state of the art power stabilisers and un-interruptible power supply.
Besides, he said the centre has a custom-designed workstations for call centre agents, integrated with soft phones telephone and connected to command and control centres of all the agencies.
“All inbound calls are received, recorded and tracked to ensure accountability,” he said.
