NCC and the new Senate's Emergency Bill

Based on the rising incidences of crime and insurgency, the Senate has proposed a bill on emergency toll free number. Chairman, Senate Committee on Communications,

Senator Gilbert Nnaji, stated the need for enactment of law that would take care of emergency numbers in Nigeria in view of the current upsurge in crime. He said: “It is important for Nigeria to adopt the ‘191’ as the emergency number”, adding thus the decision of the Senate Committee to get industry stakeholders’ inputs on the way forward.

But the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) have advised the Senate to drop the proposed bill on Emergency Communication Commission’s (ECC) toll free number, insisting it will amount to duplication of efforts, since emergency toll free number already exists in the country.

Educating members of the Senate on the existing emergency toll free number in the country, the NCC, at a recent public hearing on the National Emergency Toll Free Number Bill 2015, held at the Senate conference room in Abuja, insisted that there was no need to have a bill on the emergency toll free number since the existing one is working.

After several debates on the issue, the Senate Committee Chairman on Communications insisted on dialling the 112 toll free line, just to be sure that the number is really functioning, but unfortunately, there was no response from the number.

Irked by the malfunctioning of the 112 toll free line, the Senate Committee requested to know from the NCC, what happened to the budgetary allocation for the emergency numbers since this has always been included in the NCC’s budget every year and the number is not functioning.

In its submission, ALTON supported the NCC’s position that there was no need for the bill since 112 exist. Chairman of ALTON, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, told the Senate that what needed to be done was to make the number functional and not creating another one. Adebayo said NCC should be supported by the Senate to make the 112 emergency toll free number work.

The Senate Committee chairman however told them that there is still three weeks room for submission of presentation on emergency toll free number bill, and the hearing was later adjourned till further notice.

The 191 bill, titled ‘A Bill for an Act to Establish a Nationwide Toll-Free Emergency Number for the Reporting of Emergencies Throughout the Federation of Nigeria’, seeks to establish a nationwide and uniform toll-free emergency number in Nigeria, which is designated as 191 of which Section 5 and 6 of the Bill seeks to grant the NCC with extensive supervisory and management powers and expects it to provide direction in respect of the bill, if passed into law. Either way, the new awareness is hoped to improve the current situation of the ECC.

The NCC which will still have to supervise and manage the new emergency number is seeking collaboration with response agencies to support the stand on improving the existing number instead of the unnecessary duplication.