>
By Emmanuel Adeleke
The Federal Government has launched the Nigeria Internal Security and Public Safety Alerts System (NISPSAS), a mobile application for sending alerts to security agencies.
Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, launched the app at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja, on Thursday.
According to the minister, many attacks would have been prevented if the security agencies had been notified in real time, noting that this prompted the development of a platform that the public can use to communicate with security agencies.
He said: “One noticeable lacuna is information and timely alert of the security agencies to incidents of crime, 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 on time.
“As part of the response to this challenge, the ministry of interior has therefore developed an application, a technological innovation that works with the smart mobile phone or any other device 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.”
Aregbesola said the application is free to use for Nigerians, adding that it can only work on smart devices for now.
“The app utilises a combination of audio-visual and geospatial location identification of the caller and scenes of incidents on the ministry’s 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, civil defence as well as police headquarters for joint inter-agency operations,” he added.
The minister stated that the app can be downloaded by searching for ‘NISPSAS’ on Android or iOS playstore.