In a bid to boost the president Muhammadu Buhari-led government’s efforts to secure the lives of Nigerians and their properties, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has activated 18 emergency communication centres (ECC) across the country.
The 18 centres built and equipped with modern technology equipment and facilities by the NCC will help to bridge the communication gap between the distressed and emergency response agencies in the country.
The NCC has mandated all telecom operators to route emergency calls through the dedicated three-digit toll free number, 112, from each state to the emergency centre within that state. The operators, who are resident in the ECC will then process the distress call and contact the relevant Emergency Response Agency (such as Fire Service, Police, FRSC, Ambulance, etc.) whose primary duty is to handle the case.
In 2019, alone the NCC activated and increased the number of operational ECC to 17 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital (FCT), Abuja .
The states are Benue, Kwara, Plateau, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo, Edo, Akwa Ibom, Cross Rivers, Imo, Anambra, Enugu and Adamawa.
The commissioning of the National Emergency Toll-Free Number “112” and the one in Katsina was successfully carried out on September 23, 2019. Necessary preparations and arrangements are, however, on-going towards ensuring successful launch and commissioning of such centres, including publicity and enlightenment in the remaining states of the country.
As a result of the impact and critical importance of the ECC to national security, the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, professor, Umar Danbatta was recognised as Nigeria’s Goodwill Ambassador in Security and Emergency Management while NCC, as a corporate body, was conferred with the award of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Security and Emergency Management.
They received the awards earlier in December at the maiden Security and Emergency Management Awards hosted by the Emergency Digest, a publication of Image Merchants Promotion Limited, in conjunction with the Centre for Crisis Communication.
Closely linked to the NCC’s efforts in implementing the ECC Project to boost Federal Government’s drive to promote security of lives and property, was also the Commission’s on-going efforts towards sanitising the country’s SIM database for increased security in the country.
In 2019, over 24 million invalidly-registered subscriber records were scrubbed by the Commission via Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) in fulfilment of the mandate to establish a credible database of telephone subscribers.
