Nigeria is set to retire the 63-year-old law that has governed its firefighters since before independence, with the Federal Government preparing to send a new Federal Fire and Rescue Service Act to President Bola Tinubu for assent within days.
The Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, announced the plan on Monday in Abuja at the opening of the 2026 National Fire Safety Week, describing the current Fire Service Act of 1963 as unfit for the demands of a modern economy. He said a law written more than six decades ago cannot answer the realities of 2026, and that the review of the Act had been completed, clearing the way for the bill to be laid before the President. By his account, it is the first time in 63 years that any administration has carried the reform this far.
At the heart of the minister’s case is the question of legal authority. He said the old law denies firefighters the powers they need, insisting there is “no right way of doing something that is legally wrong.” The proposed law would widen the mandate of the Federal Fire Service well beyond putting out fires, covering medical emergencies, floods, chemical spills, toxic materials, bomb attacks and even earthquakes. Fire suppression, he noted, is only one of about twenty functions that fire and rescue services perform in other countries, and he wants a Nigerian service whose core specialisation is rescue.
The reform would also open the sector to private investment, a shift the ministry has pushed for more than a year on the argument that a growing population and expanding economy cannot be protected on government funding alone. Tunji-Ojo called for volunteer fire marshals in every district and town, stronger inspection and code enforcement, and the teaching of basic rescue skills, including resuscitation, in schools.
The urgency is grounded in hard numbers. Official fire service records show that Nigeria lost 114 lives to 1,866 fire incidents in 2025, with property worth about N74.75 billion destroyed, even as firefighters saved 2,106 lives and protected property valued at N934.70 billion. A five-year compilation from the service’s data centre puts total losses between 2021 and 2025 at roughly N3.2 trillion and 388 lives, against about N19 trillion in property saved and more than 3,800 people rescued across 11,014 incidents. The fatality rate, which had fallen steadily to 1.1 deaths per 100 incidents in 2024, jumped to 6.1 in 2025, a reversal that underlines why response capacity has become a live policy concern.
Tunji-Ojo said the picture is beginning to change. Average response time, which stood at between 32 and 35 minutes when the administration took office, has dropped to 15 minutes and 22 seconds, and he reported that 119 lives were saved with no fatality recorded across 36 fire incidents as of August. He linked the gains to new operational vehicles, detection technology and prevention campaigns rolled out over the past two years.
Infrastructure is being expanded alongside the legal overhaul. The minister said the National Fire Academy in Sheda, Abuja, is now 85 per cent complete and should be operational by the end of the year, with commissioning expected in December. The government has also spoken of building fire academies across the six geopolitical zones and extending fire stations into senatorial districts and local governments.
The Controller-General of the Federal Fire Service, Olumode Samuel Adeyemi, said this year’s safety week would run simultaneously in all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, with fire safety booklets translated into several Nigerian languages, and that the service is working with the Tertiary Education Trust Fund on safety infrastructure in public tertiary institutions.
For now, the reform rests with the National Assembly and the President. The bill must still clear its final legislative steps and secure Tinubu’s signature before any new powers take effect, and the real test will be whether stronger laws and faster trucks mean fewer funerals when the next harmattan fires come.