The Controller General of the Federal Fire Service (FFS), Dr Liman A. Ibrahim has assured Nigerians that the agency is better prepared and positioned to respond aptly and effectively to fire incidents and other emergencies.
Dr Ibrahim said this while delivering his end of year message to Nigerians at the FFS headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.
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He stated that efforts by the Muhammadu Buhari-led Administration to safeguard the lives and property of Nigerians had led to the procurement of fire fighting assets, training of staff and motivation of staff of the Service.
He explained that before 2015, the FFS had only three rickety fire fighting trucks, but now has 141 modern fire trucks while its staff strength has increased from 600 to over 6,000.
Dr Ibrahim added that the Service has also expanded from its initial presence in just Lagos State and Abuja to all States of the federation.
He said: “All of these have resulted in the reduction of loss of lives and property from fire incidents.
“If you check our fire statistics this year, in comparison to other years, you will see that this year there is a drop in the loss of lives from 147 lives in 2020 to 70 lives in 2021 and increase in the estimated property saved from 1.4 trillion in 2020 to 19.4 trillion in 2021.
“In our efforts to give Nigerians a new branded fire service, we have been able to review our key working documents, they include Nigerian Fire Policy, National Fire Safety Code, Standard Operating Procedure, Rules, Regulations and Disciplinary Act. I believe that when this is done, both Nigerians and the Nigerian Fire Service will be better for it.”
“The citizens have a role to play in the safeguarding of lives and property. These roles include compliance to fire safety code, taking seriously safety educations, not involving in negligent action that could result to fire, knowing the emergency numbers and calling them in good time when there is a fire or any emergency, as well as refraining from obstructing emergency vehicles on the road to emergency scenes, and desisting from attacking firefighters at fire scenes.
“If we all do these, Nigeria will have a tremendous reduction in the loss of lives and property from fire-related emergencies.”
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