The Federal Government has directed relevant agencies to develop an operational roadmap for nationwide activation of Nigeria’s unified 112 emergency number.

The Federal Government on Tuesday stepped up efforts towards the nationwide activation of the 112 national emergency number, directing stakeholders and relevant agencies to design a comprehensive operational roadmap for its rollout.

It has, therefore, constituted a committee comprising the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and other relevant agencies to finalise the roadmap and standard operating procedures for formal endorsement by the National Economic Council (NEC).

NEC had recently approved 112 as Nigeria’s single universal toll-free emergency number to replace fragmented and slow response lines, with a view to eliminating bureaucratic red tape and allowing citizens easy access to rapid assistance during fires, accidents, medical crises or security breaches.

Addressing stakeholders during the National Emergency Number 112 Project meeting, Vice President Kashim Shettima, who gave the directive, urged the committee to ensure its decisions were based on global best practices in order to develop a clear roadmap.

Charging the committee to finalise the roadmap and standard operating procedures for formal NEC endorsement, Shettima stressed the need to make significant progress, assuring stakeholders that resources would be made available to fund the process once progress became visible.

“Let’s make progress so that whatever time we have spent here is worth spending. And most importantly, the engine is finance. It is resources to drive the process. And I want to assure you that we will get the resources,” the Vice President stated.

Also speaking, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Olatunji Rilwan Disu, said the Nigeria Police Force was fully in support of the adoption of 112 as Nigeria’s unified national emergency number.

From an operational perspective, Disu noted that the initiative was “a significant step towards ensuring that citizens have a simple and reliable means of accessing emergency assistance.”

He explained that for a citizen facing an armed attack, accident, fire outbreak, medical emergency, kidnapping or any other life-threatening situation, the first challenge was often determining which agency to contact, stressing that one number should provide access to the appropriate response.

Earlier in her presentation, Personal Assistant to the President on e-Governance in the Office of the Vice President, Mrs Lydia Aina, noted that emergency response in Nigeria currently cuts across several agencies, systems and jurisdictions, creating fragmentation in how emergencies are received, coordinated and responded to.

She said the goal was to move from the fragmented system through coordinated response to a fully integrated national framework.

Aina explained that the meeting was focused on the system behind the emergency number, including “the people, the agencies, the standards that make the number actually work when citizens dial it.”

“Our job now is to turn it into an actual working programme with milestones. So, we have identified six immediate priorities. First, governance. We need a clear structure of who’s responsible for what,” she said. (AriseNews TV)