The Lagos State Emergency Agency (LASEMA) said 86 per cent of calls to its emergency 112 service within an average of 24 hours were hoaxes.

In an infographic published on its Twitter handle @Lasemasocial Wednesday, LASEMA said it received 74,317 calls and answered 68,553 of them. Out of the answered calls, 68,291 were found to be hoaxes.

According to the agency, 4,168 of the calls were abandoned, while still ringing and 1595 abandoned while in queue.

LASEMA published the statistics following an accusation by a caller that the agency did not respond to his call when he reported a robbery incident.

LASEMA debunked the allegation and using the spool of the call to buttress its response, said it responded on the third call. It said the complaint was ‘properly handled and escalated’.

“The first call was received by a member of our ERC at 11:06pm and was terminated due to network issues. However his third call was received by Another ERC at 11:10pm, & was properly handled and escalated,” it said.

LASEMA said it treats every call like its genuine and a series of questions are asked to ascertain that.

However, it urged Lagosians to only call 112 when they have REAL and GENUINE Emergencies. (NAN)