Nigeria’s national emergency number, 112, failed to connect during a live television test on Tuesday after an All Progressives Congress chieftain, Alwan Hassan, challenged the programme’s presenter to dial the number while defending the achievements of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
Hassan, a member of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today, where he listed the emergency number among government initiatives and urged anchor Seun Okinbaloye to test it on air.
“Take your phone and call 112,” Hassan said. “Nobody knows about this. We used to hear it in America, 911. Call 112 now, put it on the speaker, and they’ll ask you what’s your emergency. Welcome to Nigeria. Call 112… Thanks to the APC government.”
Okinbaloye dialled the number, but the call did not go through.
“Not ringing just yet,” the presenter initially said before observing that the line appeared to be engaged.
“This number is not working,” he said.
Hassan insisted that the emergency line was functional.
“It will ring, and they will pick. That’s an emergency line,” he said, later suggesting that there might be a network problem.
He said he had called the number “so many times just to test it and they pick”.
Okinbaloye countered that he had successfully dialled other numbers from the same location and said viewers were also sending messages claiming that they could not reach 112.
“Why are they making you a liar right now?” the presenter asked.
Hassan replied: “I’m not a liar… It’s not a lie.”
He maintained that the service was working and said it had been functional since 2020, adding that it was launched under the late President Muhammadu Buhari.
Explaining how the emergency system was intended to operate, Hassan said calls to 112 were routed to emergency centres within the caller’s location.
According to him, a caller in Kano would be connected to the Kano emergency centre, while someone in Enugu would reach the Enugu centre.
He said operators would establish the nature and location of the emergency and contact the appropriate medical, security or emergency response agency.
Hassan also disclosed that the government was developing a dashboard at every emergency centre that would enable officials to identify a caller’s location without requiring the person in distress to provide an address.
He said the Abuja centre was ready, but President Tinubu had directed that it should not be launched until all centres across the country had been aligned, which he said would happen by March 2027.
According to him, Vice-President Kashim Shettima had recently visited the Abuja centre, insisting that the system was “real”.
When Okinbaloye described the emergency line as potentially part of a “long list of non-functional promises”, Hassan appealed for patience.
“We’ll fulfil them. We’ll fulfil them with time. This is why we’re asking for more time,” he said.
He added that the Tinubu administration had “done a lot that people will see”, citing six cancer centres, three of which he said were already operational.
The discussion also turned to the 2027 presidential election, particularly Tinubu’s electoral prospects in northern Nigeria.
Hassan said he was confident that the President would defeat the opposition in the North.
“Atiku is a son of the North, and I’m a son of the North too,” he said.
He claimed that he would defeat the Atiku Abubakar-led opposition in his ward and declared: “Kano is for Tinubu. Northern Nigeria is for Tinubu.”
Hassan argued that although Kano had historically been a stronghold of Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Kwankwaso would not be on the ballot as a presidential candidate in 2027.
He further claimed that about 60 per cent of the Kwankwasiyya movement had left and argued that the African Democratic Congress lacked the structure required to protect votes across northern Nigeria.
On the North-East, Hassan acknowledged Atiku’s strong performance in the region in 2023 but argued that Tinubu had improved his standing through infrastructure projects.
He cited road projects connecting Akwanga to Jos, Jos to Bauchi, Bauchi to Gombe and Gombe to Biu, saying the projects would open farm-to-market routes and reduce vehicle maintenance costs.
Hassan also predicted that Tinubu would defeat Atiku in Adamawa State in 2027.
“Tinubu will beat Atiku in Adamawa. Watch and see,” he said.
Asked about Peter Obi and the crowds that had received him in parts of Lagos, Hassan dismissed crowd sizes as an unreliable measure of electoral support.
He maintained that northern voters would prefer Tinubu to Obi.
Hassan further argued that in states where Obi wins, Tinubu would come second, while in states won by Tinubu, Atiku or Obi would struggle for second place.
“Especially in the South, Atiku will not get anything,” he said.
“This thing is over,” Hassan added, claiming that the APC’s electoral mathematics already favoured Tinubu.
On former President Buhari’s political base, Hassan rejected suggestions that Tinubu depended on Buhari’s support to win the 2023 election.
Asked whether Tinubu benefited from Buhari’s backing, he said: “Let the truth be told: we did not.”
According to him, Tinubu “won on his own”, arguing that Buhari did not fully campaign for him.
He said Tinubu won the election “against all odds”.
The programme also revisited Tinubu’s 2023 statement that Nigerians should not vote for him for a second term if he failed to fix electricity.
Hassan said the statement had been taken out of context.
According to him, what Tinubu said was: “If I come back to you without fixing electricity, don’t give me a second term unless I give you an adequate reason why I could not fix it.”
“A promise taken is a promise kept,” Hassan said.
He said the administration had recently released more than 93 out of about 300 containers at the Nigerian Ports Authority containing heavy transformers that had remained there for more than 20 years.
Hassan said the equipment would help improve electricity transmission.
Asked whether it was embarrassing for Tinubu to again promise reliable electricity, Hassan said power sector reform remained an ongoing process.
“It’s a process he has started,” he said, adding that reliable power would be “realistic in the next four years”.
“You can’t do all in three or two years,” he added.
He also cited the Siemens power project inherited from the Buhari administration and said trillions of naira had been approved and released for metering.
Asked whether he had personally experienced uninterrupted electricity, Hassan said he had enjoyed 24-hour power at his home during the year, although he acknowledged occasional outages caused by faults on the lines.
Hassan also defended Tinubu’s record in education, health, infrastructure, agriculture, pensions and other sectors.
He said the Nigerian Education Loan Fund had contributed to a rise in JAMB registrations and argued that beneficiaries and their families represented potential electoral support for Tinubu.
He also cited renovations of thousands of classrooms, interventions in tertiary institutions, payments to pensioners, road projects and agricultural initiatives.
On agriculture, Hassan pointed to an agricultural hub at Bayero University Kano, which he said had substantially increased tomato and cucumber yields.
He also repeated his claim that six cancer centres had been established, with three already operational.
“This man is a wonderful man,” Hassan said of Tinubu.
“Whether you like him or not, he is the best thing that has ever happened to this country, I swear.”
The discussion later turned to hunger and the cost of living.
When Okinbaloye noted that Nigerians frequently called the station seeking help and that the opposition had framed the 2027 contest as “Tinubu versus hungry Nigerians”, Hassan dismissed the description as opposition rhetoric.
“People are not that hungry,” he said.
Pressed on whether the statement could offend Nigerians struggling to feed themselves, Hassan maintained his position.
“People are not that hungry the way the opposition is portraying it, and I’ll say it anywhere,” he said.
He acknowledged that the government was importing food to increase supply and reduce prices.
“We cannot feed ourselves, but in the meantime we must import. You can’t leave people starving,” he said.
Asked what explanation the APC would offer if Tinubu lost the 2027 election, Hassan said defeat would be the ruling party’s own failure rather than an opposition victory.
“It’s for us to lose. It’s not for the opposition to defeat us,” he said.
He added that if Tinubu lost, he would tell Nigerians that “they have lost a president, a committed president that has the country at heart”.
Hassan also dismissed concerns about Tinubu’s physical fitness compared with some of his political opponents.
“Does anyone determine his own health? Are these people playing God?” he asked.
“It’s not a wrestling arena,” he added.
On claims by Obi’s supporters that their candidate would win the election, Hassan said such confidence was expected from anyone contesting an election.
“Everybody contesting will tell you they are going to win elections,” he said.
Post Title: “Call 112 Now, Thanks To APC Government” — Emergency Line Fails Live TV Test As Hassan Says Tinubu Needs More Time By Naijaonpoint.