Many Nigerians are very conversant with emergency 911 toll-free dial because we get to watch it play out severally in Hollywood films.
However, have we wondered to ask why the Nigerian emergency dial code is not half as popular to Nigerians as 911?
On-Air-Personality, Sandra Ezekwesili believes that Nollywood has a major role to play in creating that awareness which will go a long way to create a safer Nigeria.
Sandra called on Nollywood producers to engage in more social engineering by incorporating scenes where characters who are in need of emergency response actually call 112, which is Nigerian emergency toll-free number, to create more awareness.
Sandra believes that by including such scenes, calling police would become popular especially when viewers see their favourite actors dialing such codes during emergencies in movies.
She tweeted:
“Nollywood, please start writing in scenes where people call 112 or 767. Social engineering is part of your job description.
Let people call 112 when they see something odd, let them dial when there’s a robbery, when there’s a fire, a dead body, a sick person.
“And please make police come. We’ve done “no fuel” enough. Let’s help build a hope in people that police will actually show. The number of times my mom has said “okwa I furu ya na dat feem” tells me that the lines blur. More than we know. So please. Work that into every film.
“Work it into conversations. Do it aggressively and obsessively. @PoliceNG continues to claim under reporting is why they don’t know about crime. The people continue to claim, police no go do anything as the reason they don’t call. Let’s change that narrative.
“Chief Daddy had a scene where chief slumped. In Lagos. Patience and Nkem were crying and calling Jesus. Instead of calling 112. Imagine what seeing Patience call 112 would’ve done. Same for when Pete Edochie had a heart attack in LionHeart. Make all our faves call 112!
Interestingly, Sandra’s tweets drew important responses among her followers. One follower felt that Nollywood producers who invest their money to make films don’t owe anyone such responsibility, another one also revealed how he was surprised to get quick response the day he dialed the numbers during emergency.
Read the responses below.
