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Emergency Centres Will Continue To Provide Essential Emergency Response Services To The Nigerian Public
The Emergency Communications Centres (ECC), now fully operational in a total of 27 State Capitals across the country, has so far provided employment for 1,200 Nigerian youths, while more will be employed as the additional 8 centres under different stages of completion become fully operational by 2024.
The ECCs being implemented by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), were built originally to provide essential emergency response services to the Nigerian public, and are reachable on Toll-Free Number 112, as well as operating in a similar design like the 911 Emergency Numbers in some developed parts of the world.
The NCC said on Monday in a statement by its Director, Public Affairs, Mr. Reuben Muoka that the ECCs now provide employment placements for many Nigerian youth and professionals and offer informal business activities to citizens across the Country, beyond providing essential emergency response services to the Nigerian public.
Muoka said that four more centres are currently undergoing test-runs to commence services in September 2023, bringing the total to 31, while another set of four is expected to come into operation before the end of the year.
“The Commission provided technology platforms such as Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems for the respective response agencies such as police, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Fire Service, Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC), Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Ambulance Service, and State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMA) to facilitate the dispatch of emergency calls through the national emergency toll-free number 112,” Muoka said in the statement.
While explaining that the three-digit code was designed to ensure that citizens in emergency situations can easily recall the three-digit code, 112, to report emergency situations, Muoka disclosed that “Agents of the ECCs, have been trained, and equipped with state-of-the-art communications equipment, including digital radio and Internet-protocol (IP) and geo-location technologies to enable responders to easily identify the location of incidents for effective and efficient delivery of rescue services to the public.
He further explained that Emergency Centre services in Nigeria are available, live, 24 hours a day as the agents run in shifts to ensure that services are delivered at all times of the day, adding that the response agencies, such as the Police with round-the-clock duties to prevent, stop and arrest crimes, are now being provided with additional mobile communications devices, some installed in their offices, to enable them to instantly receive information from call agents at the centres.
“This is to also ensure that the top echelon of the force is provided instant information for command and control over emergency situations or incidents across the country.
“As the ECCs assume more crucial roles in providing emergency communications services to the citizenry, it is also providing additional socio-economic responsibility of providing job opportunities to the citizens as each of the centres have staffs made up of Call agents, Facility/IT Staff, and Administrators.
“The basic salaries of the staff of ECCs, have been carefully set by the Commission, to ensure that the jobs at the centres are attractive for the Nigerian youths, and other categories of employees. The Centres are also managed by indigenous Nigerian consultants who are engaged to provide total facility and operational management of the centres,” Muoka disclosed.