Nawa ooo - Lagos receives five million emergency telephone calls monthly

The Lagos State Commissioner for Science and Technology, Mr. Adebiyi Mabadeje, has said that over five million calls are received monthly at the state’s Security Command and Information Management System Centre.

Speaking with journalists at the state e-Learning Centre in Lagos on Friday, the commissioner said the need to match the increase in the number of phone calls with the available calls for appropriate action had become imperative for the government

“The command centre currently records about five million telephone calls from the members of the public on a monthly basis. Though not all the calls are completed calls,”. Mabadeje said.

According to him, the Centre was established as part of measures to ensure excellent communication and collaboration between different stakeholders in the fight against crime in the state.

Mabadeje said the information system would collate and computerise police, judiciary and prison records and ensure that crime investigation would be effective in the state.

He explained that calls to the toll free numbers, 767 and 112, would provide security information that could be processed for necessary action for the government and its agencies in ensuring security of lives and property in the state.

The commissioner said calls to the centre had steadily increased from 417,000 in 2008, to approximately 32,000,000 calls.

Mabadeje said the number of calls being received at the centre had since increased from 4.2 million to five million monthly, adding that the increase was indicative of the level of awareness that Lagos residents now had about the toll-free numbers in case of emergencies.

Speaking on accessibility, the commissioner said the command centre was not using public network of mobile operators, but directly connected to dedicated channels on the mobile networks so as to ensure seamless call access.

He said the centre was not using the same public network that telecoms subscribers were using, thereby increasing access for emergency callers.

Meanwhile, Governor Babatunde Fashola, while underscoring the importance of processing the quantum of calls being received at the centre for necessary action, had recently said in October 2011, that out of 2,776,036 calls, 683,802 were fake emergency calls, with the remainder being largely requests for services such as leaking pipes and potholes, among others.

He said these were calls that should have been directed to the relevant ministries, departments and agencies rather than to emergency services, adding that by November, the number of fake calls had increased to 1,131,545 out of a total of 4.2 million and kept growing.