The Federal Government has said it is planning to decentralise the fire service’s emergency response system.
According to The Punch, the Minister of Interior, Bunmi Tunji-Ojo, who has been inspecting the facilities of various paramilitary organisations under his watch since Wednesday, said this to journalists in his office on Friday.
He said the Federal Government was planning to have firefighting trucks stationed at every economic zone in the country to improve the response time to emergencies in the country.
He said, “We will do everything humanly possible to decentralise the emergency response system. I am happy to see the mobile trucks. If we have more in our economic zones and our markets as first responders, it will be good. It will be very disastrous if there is fire in the markets and there is no immediate response.”
Tunji-Ojo said, “The responsibility of government is the protection of lives and property. This government is aware of its responsibility, and we will provide you with firefighting appliances to do your job.
“In terms of capacity building, our training schools will no longer be dumping grounds. We will train and retrain our officers in modern techniques and equip them accordingly.”
Talking about challenges, permit me also to acquaint you with some of them. They are inadequate manpower, attacks on firefighters, housing needs for personnel, firefighting infrastructural gaps, and budgetary constraints, among others.
“We’re confident that you will use the might and influence of your good office to help resolve some, if not all, of our issues.”
