Emergency number 112 fails to answer in televised test in Nigeria
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Punch
On Channels TV’s Politics Today, the emergency number 112 did not connect when presenter Seun Okinbaloye dialled it, at the request of APC official Alwan Hassan, who touted the service as an achievement of President Bola Tinubu. Hassan blamed a network problem, while the presenter said other calls were going through, according to Punch.
Nigeria’s national emergency number, 112, failed to connect during a live test on Channels Television. Presenter Seun Okinbaloye dialled it on Tuesday, on the programme Politics Today, after All Progressives Congress (APC, ruling party) official Alwan Hassan challenged him to do so.
Hassan, a member of the APC presidential campaign council, presented the line as an achievement of the government of President Bola Tinubu. After the failure, he suggested a possible network problem. The presenter replied that other calls were going through from the same location and that viewers were also reporting that the number was not working.
Hassan said he had called the service several times successfully. According to him, calls are received by local emergency communication centres, which direct callers to ambulances or the nearest police station. He added that the government was developing a dashboard to locate callers. The Abuja centre is ready, he said, but Tinubu asked that it not be launched until the country’s centres are aligned, which he expects by next March.
