Reps Committee Commends Awka Emergency Call Centre

The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on
Communications, Mr Oyetunde Ojo, has expressed satisfaction with the Emergency
Communication Centre, Awka, for disseminating information in times of distress.

Ojo made the observation when he led nine members of the
committee to the centre on an oversight tour.

He commended the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) for
making such good initiative for emergency management and expressed the hope
that response agents would cooperate to make the work of the centre relevant.

“We are impressed with the facilities at the centre, though
not commissioned yet. The systems there were working even though the staff
members have gone for training.

“The only fear and challenge is that this being for
security, we need to be more security conscious; when you have such an
infrastructure knowing what is going on presently in the country, the building
has to be protected,” he said.

The chairman expressed the hope that by December, the
infrastructure would be put to use, adding that “our visit is to make sure that
NCC is living up to expectation”.

He disclosed that the Awka and Minna centres were the pilot
centres while 18 other locations were in Enugu, Owerri, Lagos and others.

Earlier, the Director of Public Affairs of the commission,
Mr Tony Ojobo, explained that the centre was to assist in issues of emergency,
especially helping states to tackle problems of insecurity, fire outbreak,
accidents and robberies.

On the operations of the centres, Ojobo said the emergency
number is 112 which was toll free and configured to link all GSM service
providers in the country.

“When people dial 112, it comes to the centre and depending
on the nature of the emergency, the agents will pass on the information to the
particular government agency.

“If it is fire, they pass it on to the fire service; if it
is crime, they pass it on to the police and if it is accident, they pass it on
to the ambulance.

“Depending on the location of that particular incident, they
will call their agency in that particular council area, town or city where the
particular emergency arose from.

“The people will now go and address the issue,” he
explained.

He said calls from the South East would terminate at Awka
which served as a data base and had record keeping equipment