The Permanent Secretary, State House, Tijjani Umar, and the Controller General (CG), Federal Fire Service (FFS), Liman Alhaji Ibrahim have inaugurated the State House Fire Alert Centre.
Inaugurating the Centre in Abuja, Umar said it would safeguard national assets and ensure rapid response to emergencies within the precincts of the Presidential Villa and beyond.
The ICT-based Fire Alert System centre has already been installed in 13 States of the Federation and the platform in the Presidential Villa is the latest addition.
The Permanent Secretary said: ‘‘We have just commissioned this Fire Incident Reporting System which is not only going to take care of the precincts of the Presidential Villa but the Three Arms Zone in Abuja and beyond.
‘What this does immediately is to give everybody around this area (Three Arms Zone) the opportunity to use any electronic device to report a fire incident to safeguard lives, property and national assets.’’
He described the project as a ‘‘huge plus’’ in service delivery to the people under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
In his remarks, the CG of the FFS explained that the platform was designed by the Service to ensure rapid response to emergencies as first responders.
According to him, the communication gadget has provision for an application that can be installed on Android phones by subscribers, with which they can initiate emergency calls to the Fire Service.
“The Application enables a video transmission from the point of call so that the Fire Alert System Centre can view real live location from where the call is initiated,’’ he said.
He thanked the president for all the support to the Fire Service’ to enable it deliver its mandate of protecting the lives and property of Nigerians.
‘‘We have these communication gadgets in 13 States and we decided that before we proceed further we must bring one to the Presidential Villa because what we are today as a rebranded Federal Fire Service is the handiwork of Mr President.
‘‘Therefore whatever innovation we are doing in the Fire Service, the Villa should have a taste of it,’’ he said.
According to the CG, the Villa Fire Centre is linked to the Central Control System which can also respond to emergency incidents across the country.
He noted that under President Buhari, the Federal Fire Service had recorded massive transformation from 3 rickety fire trucks, some 600 staff and functional presence in just Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt to a Service with 141 modern fire trucks, over 6000 staff and presence in all the States of the Federation. (NAN)
