The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has announced the commencement of work on the N2.4 billion Emergency Communications Centres.
The Federal Executive Council on February 19 made known the award of the contract for the construction of the centres in the 36 states of the Federation and the FCT.
It was reported that while the centres would cost N2.4 billion, the communication gadgets would be installed at N1.8 billion ($13.5 million).  The local contractors handling the building were given 16 weeks to complete the contract.
Huwaei Technologies, a Chinese firm, was selected for the supply and installation of equipment in the 37 centres and it got 24 weeks to undertake the assignment.
Mr. Reuben Moukah, head of Public Affairs of the commission, said that the project would be completed on schedule and added that contractors had moved to site. “The project is ongoing as planned and the contractors have moved to site in various parts of the country. They are expected to finish the work in good time”, he said.
He said he believed that the 16 weeks given to the contractors for the project is realisable and assured that the work is ongoing.
According to him, the importance of an emergency communications system in the country cannot be quantified with money.
He explained that Nigeria is one of the countries of the world without an emergency communications system.  These centres cater for everything about emergency that relates to the lives of the people and their well being.
“It is late in coming, as Nigeria ought to have built such centres 20 years back, it is not about money, it is about getting it to happen. It is a custom-made, sophisticated and state of the art network,” he noted.
Moukah said with the centres, the NCC, hospitals, police and fire departments, would utilise a toll free emergency system to ensure that callers receive help as quickly as possible. “On the cost of the project, Moukah said, ``if a contract goes through FEC and it is approved, it means that it must have gone through all the necessary due processes”, he said. However, the Nigeria Union of Postal and Telecommunications Employees (NUPTE), has faulted the proposed project, describing it as a duplication of the function of Nitel.
Mr. Sunday Alhassan, president of NUPTE said that a rejuvenated Nitel could effectively serve the purpose of the centres. “Installing equipment in the states to serve as emergency lines for security purpose is duplication, because we have an organisation that can serve this purpose, even better. If the equipment that Nitel has is overhauled and revived, it would serve this purpose.

Nigerian e-mail scam takes new twist

A new version of the now-famous Nigerian e-mail scam is circulating around the Internet.
 According to a Monday blog post on Sophos’ Web site, the new spam campaign has many characteristics of similar attempts to extract financial information from unsuspecting users that have been tried in the past:The e-mail claims to come from an executive at an African Bank (this time in the Republic of Benin in West Africa); it asks for “urgent assistance in transferring the sum of million to your account within 14 banking days,” and offers contact information.
The idea behind this scam, as with ones like it in the past, is that someone, somewhere will be gullible enough to actually e-mail their personal information and bank details to the contact name listed. Instead, of course, the spammer collects the information and either sells it to criminals or uses it himself to commit financial fraud.
In the current campaign the spammer has mixed it up a bit; according to Sophos the entire e-mail message is found in the “from” line of the e-mail. The message portion of the e-mail is blank.
It’s hard to imagine that formatting an e-mail in such an unusual way would actually work, but stranger things have happened
While Sophos says its antispam technology blocks this variant of Nigerian spam, the company nonetheless “encourages vigilance and urges common sense.”