Police Affairs Minister got that right

Navy Capt. (Rtd) Caleb Olubolade,
Police Affairs Minister

Police Affairs Minister Caleb Olubolade canvassed a point of view I have always reiterated on this blog: You need the public to fight crime.  

Hear the minister in Vanguard’s exclusive Front Page lead report on security challenge in the country today.

“Nobody can secure any community without intelligence. Without information, security agencies cannot succeed because they will be making wrong deployments and will be acting in different directions which will not help. Giving information is all that is needed and the security agencies will overcome.”

The minister should know. He was a Navy Captain.

The question is, 'what is being done to make information available to the forces? What is being done about inter-force cooperation and sharing of resources for crime-fighting?'

A key tool is the Emergency Number. Elsewhere in the world, it is the very first thing the government puts in place for efficient security. When a citizen sees something strange, the next thing is to whip out his phone and alert the police effortlessly and without spending a dime of his phone credit. 

More than a decade after access to phones has been liberalised by the GSM operators, and two years into GEJ’s govt, we still await a national, toll-free emergency number.

Lagos State has had to take its fate in its own hands by flagging off its own Emergency Numbers: 112 and 767. A more universally known number, 911 was apparently added quietly, recently.

But this is a project that is better managed by the Federal Government for uniformity. A single toll-free number should be used across the country. That way, promoting it will be easy, and recall will be much better.

A more serious federal government needs only a few months to make this functional. But a clueless one like we currently have will pussy-foot forever, while precious lives are lost to terrorism and other forms of crime.

911 emergency number active in Lagos?

 

I’m cheered this morning by the experience of a colleague yesterday in Lagos. Area boys seeking to collect ‘rent’ (owo ile) from the owner of a 20 feet container unleashed terror on their Ketu neighbourhood, maiming people and vandalising parked vehicles.

In the heat of the mayhem, he couldn’t remember any emergency number other than the 911 ingrained in his brain from watching American films, and he dialled it just for the sheer hell of it.

Surprisingly, a dispatcher picked it, got the particulars of the area, including the nearest bus stop, promised that the nearest police station would be contacted immediately and, wait for this, thanked him for remembering to dial 911. About an hour later, the police stepped in to rein in the miscreants and restore order.

Forget that it took roughly an hour for the police to arrive, enough time for many lives to have been lost; but the interesting thing to me is he dialled 911 and anybody picked it at all here in Nigeria.

That number has not been listed anywhere in Nigeria as an emergency number to the best of my knowledge. I was in so much disbelief that I asked him to show me his call log, and there it was.

I know of 767 and 112 for Lagos and recall that another colleague experienced a fire incident years ago and dialled 112 and nothing happened. The call was picked but there was no emergency response. Even though the Alausa Fire Station was just about four minutes away to their residence, they very wisely continued to battle the fire themselves till they triumphed.  

Another interesting part of this 911 story is that the call was not billed. My colleague said he checked his balance after the roughly five minutes’ call and it remained the same. Is that cool or what?

I’m keen to know who is behind this 911 number thingy. Is it the much awaited national emergency number project that has gulped billions is yet to fly or is this the baby of Lagos State government?

Kudos to whoever is behind this. At least we are getting somewhere.

Security is the job of everybody, not the armed forces alone. The major hindrance to the war against terror in Nigeria is that the government thinks the armed forces alone can win it. Nowhere in the world is such a war won without the collaboration of the public.

When people are able to give information instantaneously, conveniently and without worrying about depletion of their phone airtime, we will begin to record giant strides against all forms of criminality in Nigeria. 

Additional info

Readers on Facebook and other platforms have confirmed that this 911 is actually working in Lagos. You may wish to save it and put it on speed-dial on your phone. You may never know when you will need it.

I may post some of the feedback from the other platforms later.

Related Stories

Where is our emergency number?
National Emergency Number 112 Not Ready 7 Years Later  

Where is our emergency number?

The Goodluck Jonathan government has stayed long enough to roll out a uniform, nationally known emergency number that people can call to provide hints to security operatives about potential security risks or report a crime.

I’ve said this on my Facebook wall many times before. Where the police and other security operatives achieve wonders, it is not juju they are using. They are tapping into the power of information. It is a collaboration of the public with the forces. The public in these countries are able to effortlessly provide information to the police by dialling a short-code that is known even by kids.

 If you hear a strange shooting or you sight a band of suspicious-looking people in your neighbourhood, you can easily call the number and a police man on patrol nearby is despatched to check things out. It may turn out to be nothing, or it may be serious. Where is our own short code for emergency? Where is the communication equipment for the police? How are the forces sharing information? Is there a central system for warehousing information on terrorism that is accessible online to the operatives of all the forces deployed to fight terrorism? These are issues that the govt should focus on. It is not enough to threaten to fish out terrorists. What are we doing to make that possible aside from barricading the streets?

National Emergency Number 112 not ready 7 years later

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Reports coming in indicate that the project to install a single emergency number 112 or 199 nationwide is in various stages of completion across the states.
The project entails siting Emergency Communication Centres (ECCs) in each state of the Federation and Abuja to enable members of the public alert the security agencies to emergency situations, threat to life or to volunteer useful security information to authorities.
According to Technology Times, this project has so far gulped over N4billion since it was conceived in 2005 by a Special Inter-Agency Committee comprising the then Ministry of Communications, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Security Agencies, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), among others.
Huawei was awarded a $13.572million contract for the Communications Infrastructure. The company will the centres with the required gadgets for exchanging information with various security agencies. The facilities are to include 11 workstations for call takers in each State; System Servers and Switches for each State; UPS Battery Bank for each State; Universal Access Platform; Array Storage Systems and Raised Platforms, according to the project audit report seen by Technology Times.

Contracts for the construction of bungalows housing the communication infrastructure across 36 States of the Federation and Abuja were awarded at the cost of N2.44billion to 22 companies with the audit showing that number of states allotted per contract beneficiary ranged from one to a maximum of three. These have been concluded in 23 states including Niger, Anambra, Gombe, Bauchi, Katsina, Zamfara, Osun and Benue, Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto, Borno, Enugu, Ekiti, Edo, Yobe, Kano, Imo, Akwa Ibom, Jigawa, Taraba, Kogi and Ondo.

Nine states that have also recorded specified levels of progress as evaluated by the audit include Nassarawa, 90%; Oyo, 85%; Cross River, 95%; Adamawa, 50%; Plateau, 90%; Ogun, 75%; Delta, 40%; Abia, 50% and Kwara, 50%.

However, the audit reveals that little progress have so far been made in five states that include the FCT, Lagos and Bayelsa where land for the construction of the ECC has just been obtained.
Also, three GSM networks, MTN Nigeria, Glo and Airtel have been chosen to serve as 112 carriers for the assigned Emergency code and will also provide interconnect facilities for the seamless running of the ECCs, according to the audit report citing that other phone networks will also be required to route all calls on the emergency numbers to the designated carrier at the respective centers.

So far, MTN Nigeria has provided interconnection at Minna, while Glo has provided interconnection at Akwa, Oshogbo, Makurdi, Bauchi, Gombe, Katsina and Gusau.

Plans are underway for the development of a coordinated strategy for effective response to the ECCs by the designated Response Agencies including Fire Departments, Federal Road Safety Corps, National Ambulance Service, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Civil Defence Corps, Nigeria Police, among others, the report says.