The Federal Government on Thursday launched the Nigeria Internal Security and Public Safety Alerts System (N-Alerts) mobile App to combat crimes and criminality in the country.
The App is to help citizens reach out to security agencies across the country for swift intervention concerning crime, homicide, or other security-related incidents.
According to a statement by the acting Director of Press, Federal Ministry of Interior, Mr. Kania Maliki, the inauguration of the app was conducted by the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, at the ministry’s headquarters.
Maliki, however, said that the good news was that the Federal Government was winning the war against the enemies of the country, hence the need for the app to further tackle the menace headlong.
What the Minister of Interior is saying
Maliki, in the statement, pointed out that the minister said that the Federal Government had so far committed huge resources, both human and material, into the ongoing fight against the enemies of the country and would continue to do that.
Aregbesola said, “All these efforts are geared towards addressing the security challenges in the country, with personnel and equipment spread thin.”
The minister, however, said that many attacks would have been foiled if the security agencies had been notified in real-time, hence the need for a common platform that could interface the public with the security agencies.
He said, “One noticeable lacuna is information and timely alert of the security agencies to incidents of crimes, breach of security and natural disasters before they happen or while they are going on. In most cases, they would have been prevented or mitigated if the alert had come in time.
‘’The ministry therefore, developed an application, a technological innovation that worked with the smart mobile phone or any other devise with android or IOS capability, to send alerts to all security agencies in real-time.
“The initiative is in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration’s policy of making the security of lives and property of Nigerians a priority.
“It is also part of the objective of leveraging on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in doing government business and operations.”
App is free
Aregbesola, who said that the application was free to use for Nigerians, further noted that for now, it could only work on smart devices and encouraged all Nigerians to download it for use.
- He said, “The App utilises a combination of audio-visual and geospatial location identification of the caller and scenes of incidents on the Ministry Inter-Agency Situation Room (MISR)”.
- “It also works on the Command and Control Centres, Dashboards of the four services, that is, Immigration service, Correctional service, Federal Fire service and Civil Defence as well as Police Headquarters for joint inter-agency operations.”
- “You will recall that the Federal Government inaugurated the National Economy Digital Policies and Strategy (NDEPS) under the purview of the Federal Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy (FMCDE) in 2019.”
- “It is to this end that the ministry designed and is now deploying the N-Alerts mobile app for joint operations and monitoring of the preparedness of the services and the Nigeria Police.”
Bottom line
The N-alert mobile app, which is expected to be a game-changer in the way the country manages the security of lives and properties, could help minimize the rate of human and infrastructural casualties during some of the attacks by terrorists and criminals as security agencies would be alerted at the time of these attacks.
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