The Lagos Fire and Rescue Service has said it received 505 distressed calls between January and March this year but 143 of the calls turned out to be false alarms.
The Director of Public Affairs, Lagos State Fire Service, Amodu Shakiru, who spoke with The PUNCH on Sunday, expressed concern about the surge in the number of hoax calls received from state residents.
Shakiru, however, said the service had been working on measures to curb the rising cases of false distress calls.
“Some addresses provided were even untraceable. The toll of these deceptive calls is not merely a waste of time and resources but also a drain on taxpayers’ money.
“In the first quarter of this year alone, out of the 505 emergency calls we received, 143 of them were hoax calls made by mischievous persons. I am just talking about January to March.
“It is on the increase this year. Some people just play with the 767 distress number. We don’t know why. But we want to believe they were done purposely. Sometimes, we rushed down to the address and didn’t see any trace of fire. At other times, the addresses given were untraceable.
“It is hard to tell which of the calls are genuine, hence, the need to drive down every time we receive such distress calls. Last year, we prosecuted someone over this issue of hoax calls just to deter others. Despite all the noise we made about it in the media, it has not helped to reduce it in any way.”
