Posted by The Emergency Communications Centres, or ECCs, currently place many young people and professionals from Nigeria in jobs, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission, or NCC, in addition to offering the public crucial emergency response services.
The Commission claimed that in addition to the aforementioned, the ECCs also provide residents all around the nation with informal business opportunities.
On the Toll-Free Number 112, you can contact the ECCs, which have been built and are currently fully functioning in 27 State capitals around the nation.
They function similarly to the 911 emergency numbers used in some developed nations to help those who are witnesses to or in distress due to emergencies such as fire outbreaks, robberies or violent attacks, domestic and vehicular accidents, and medical emergencies instantly contact response agencies by dialing the toll-free three-digit number 112.
In order to increase the number of centers to 31, four more are now undergoing test runs, and four more are anticipated to open their doors before the year is over.
The Federal Road Safety Corp., the Nigerian Center for Disease Control, the Ambulance Service, and State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMA) are among the response agencies for which the Commission has provided technology platforms such as Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems to enable the dispatch of emergency calls through the national emergency toll-free number 112.
The three-digit code was created to make sure that people can quickly remember the three-digit code 112 to report emergencies.
According to the report, ECC agents have received training and are outfitted with cutting-edge communications tools, such as digital radio, Internet protocol (IP), and geolocation technologies, allowing first responders to quickly pinpoint the location of incidents and provide effective and efficient rescue services to the general public.
The NCC claimed that as the agents work in shifts to ensure that services are provided at all times of the day, Emergency Center services in Nigeria are available, live, 24 hours a day.
In order to enable the reaction agencies, such as the Police, to immediately receive information from call agents at the centers, extra mobile communications devices—some of which are located in the response agencies’ offices—are now being provided to them.
This is also done to guarantee that the senior leadership of the force receives real-time information for command and control over emergencies or occurrences across the nation.
Each of the ECCs has a staff made up of call agents, facility/IT staff, and administrators, so as they take on more significant responsibilities for providing emergency communications services to the populace, they are also taking on more socioeconomic responsibility for creating job opportunities for the people.
In order to make sure that work at the centers are appealing to young Nigerians and other groups of employees, the Commission carefully set the baseline pay of the personnel of ECCs.
In practice, more than 1,200 people are already offered jobs in the 27 operational centers spread across the nation, and as the additional eight centers—each in a different degree of completion—become completely operational by 2024, more people will be hired.
The Centers are also run by native Nigerian consultants who have been hired to handle all aspects of facility and operational management.