By YAHAYA ISAH

The Federal Government on Thursday inaugurated Nigeria Internal Security and Public Safety Alerts System (N-Alerts) mobile App to combat crimes and criminality in the country.

The acting Director of Press, Ministry of Interior, Mr Kania Maliki, announced this in a statement in Abuja.

According to him, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, inaugurated the app at the ministry’s headquarters.

Maliki, however, said that the good news was that the Federal Government was winning the war against the enemies of the country, hence the need for the app to further tackle the menace headlong.

He added that the Federal Government had so far committed very huge resources, both human and material, into the ongoing fight against the enemies of the country and would continue to do that.

“All these efforts are geared towards addressing the security challenges in the country, with personnel and equipment spread thin.”

The minister, however, said that many attacks would have been foiled if the security agencies had been notified in real time, hence the need for a common platform that could interface the public with the security agencies.

“One noticeable lacuna is information and timely alert of the security agencies to incidents of crimes, breach of security and natural disasters before they happen or while they are going on.

“In most cases, they would have been prevented or mitigated if the alert had come in time,” the minister said.

The ministry therefore, developed an application, a technological innovation that worked with the smart mobile phone or any other devise with android or IOS capability, to send alerts to all security agencies in real time.

“The initiative is in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration’s policy of making the security of lives and property of Nigerians a priority.

“It is also part of the objective of leveraging on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in doing government business and operations.”

Aregbesola, who said that the application was free to use for Nigerians, further noted that for now, it could only work on smart devices and encouraged all Nigerians to download it for use.

“The App utilises a combination of audio-visual and geospatial location identification of the caller and scenes of incidents on the Ministry Inter-Agency Situation Room (MISR).

“It also works on the Command and Control Centres, Dashboards of the four services, that is, Immigration service, Correctional service, Federal Fire service and Civil Defence as well as Police Headquarters for joint inter-agency operations.

“You will recall that the Federal Government inaugurated the National Economy Digital Policies and Strategy (NDEPS) under the purview of the Federal Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy (FMCDE) in 2019.”

It has the goal of driving the digitisation of the national economy sector and related sectors to which the security sector is one key component.

“It is to this end that the ministry designed and is now deploying the N-Alerts mobile app for joint operations and monitoring of the preparedness of the services and the Nigeria Police.”

This, he said, was to serve as a tool to enable the public access real-time response to distress and emergencies in the areas of crime, fire, flood and medical ambulance services, among others.

Also, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr Niyi Adebayo, congratulated the ministry for the inauguration of the app, adding that it came at a time when the country most needed it.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, pledged the support of his ministry, the National Orientation Agency and other departments and agencies under his ministry in promoting and publicising the Application for Nigerians’ use.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior, Dr Shuaib Belgore, thanked the former Minister of Interior, Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, for initiating the project and also taking out time to attend its inauguration. (NAN)

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