Lagos Raises Alarm as Nearly 70% of Emergency Calls Turn Out Fake
The Lagos State Government has revealed that almost seven out of every 10 calls made to its emergency hotlines over the last 16 months were either fake, prank or non-emergency calls, putting serious pressure on the state’s emergency response system.
The disclosure was made by the Commissioner for Special Duties and Intergovernmental Relations, Olugbenga Oyerinde, during the state’s annual ministerial press briefing held in Alausa, Ikeja.
According to figures released by the ministry, the Lagos State Command and Control Centre received about 24.15 million calls through emergency lines 767 and 112 between January 2025 and April 2026.
Out of this figure, 16.39 million calls — representing nearly 68 per cent — were classified as nuisance calls.
The government said the large number of fake and irrelevant calls has severely disrupted emergency operations across the state. During the same period, about 5.47 million calls reportedly went unanswered due to the overwhelming traffic on the lines.
Officials also disclosed that the abandoned call rate rose significantly from 9.3 per cent in January 2025 to 37.6 per cent by April 2026, indicating increasing strain on emergency response operators.
If the trend continues, authorities warned that more than 7.2 million emergency calls could go unanswered before the end of 2026.
The Lagos State Command and Control Centre coordinates emergency responses involving agencies such as the fire service, ambulance units, traffic management authorities and neighbourhood safety officials.
According to the report, the huge volume of nuisance calls has forced operators to spend valuable time filtering out fake reports before attending to real emergencies.
To tackle the problem, the ministry announced plans to introduce an artificial intelligence-based call screening system aimed at identifying and filtering nuisance calls before they get to human operators.
The proposed technology, expected to be deployed before the end of 2026, is projected to reduce operator workload by about 35 per cent.
The government also plans to increase the number of emergency response agents by 40 per cent, introduce automated callback systems for abandoned calls and launch a real-time analytics dashboard to improve monitoring and response coordination.
Despite the millions of fake calls recorded, only 39 cases were officially categorised as hoax calls requiring legal action during the review period.
The General Manager of the Lagos Command and Control Centre, Femi Giwa, explained that nuisance calls are mostly non-emergency calls intended to distract or waste responders’ time, while hoax calls involve deliberately false reports meant to deceive authorities and trigger unnecessary emergency responses.
However, the ministry did not clarify whether most nuisance calls were accidental dial-ins or deliberate misuse of emergency lines, raising concerns over whether technology alone would solve the problem without stronger public awareness campaigns and stricter enforcement measures.
The report also showed unusual spikes in fake calls during September and December 2025, periods when nuisance calls nearly matched the number of genuine emergency reports, although no official explanation was provided for the trend.
