Date Published: 05/20/09
Another look at NEMA
BY EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO
For those who think that public office holders do not take out time to read stories and articles about their agencies, this will come to you as a huge shock.
Reason: Some public office holders are responsive to the views expressed by writers in most leading newspapers in Nigeria just like their foreign counterparts.
One of such intellectually inclined public office holders in Nigeria is the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Air Vice Marshal Mohammed Audu-Bida (Rtd).
How? You may be asking. Then read on. This columnist had expressed very strong view in one of our past editions that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) was quick to respond to emergency situations in the North than in the South which made some analysts in Nigeria to brand the agency as the Northern Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). To be frank, this is the position we got from some observers who we spoke to.
But immediately the information reached his desk, this gentleman smiled and put a call to me and took about ten minutes educating me on the workings of his agency and strongly disputed the opinion I raised in that edition and indeed claimed that his agency had reacted to the natural disaster in Ekureku, Abi Local Government Area Council of Cross River State.
This piece will not dwell on that issue of whether the agency indeed responded to the emergency situation in that cross River Community since the Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, has sent our South-South team to assess the situation and report back to the head office.
The aim of this piece is to state unequivocally that we are indeed pleased that the National Emergency Management Agency is headed by a man who is sufficiently equipped with the intellectual and psychological endowments to do thorough and patriotic duties of bringing immediate reliefs to citizens afflicted by disaster situations.
We were glad to have been involved in the recent national media conference of the Agency where we learnt from Air Vice Marshal Mohammed Audu-Bida (rtd) that in Nigeria, as in most developing countries, disasters are threats to national development, poverty reduction initiatives and the attainment of the Millennium Developments Goals.
The range of disasters includes: frequent oil spills in the Niger Delta, pipeline vandalism in many parts of the country, rise in number and severity of floods due to climate change, increasing threat of desertification, rampant cases of fire disasters across the country, ethno-religious conflicts, gully erosions with humanitarian consequences in many parts of the country, shrinking coast lines, outbreak of avian influenza H5N1 (bird flu), plane crashes, collapsed buildings, drought and increasing levels of industrial pollution and waste.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is the Agency of the Federal Government “charged with responsibility for disaster management in Nigeria; and to make provision for other matters connected therewith”-National Emergency Agency (Establishment, ETC.) Act 1999.
Audu – Bida stated rightly that;
“In general terms, emergency management can be divided into four categories mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. But these categories are not strict-there are some overlaps. Proactive disaster management, though more focused on mitigation and preparedness embraces a holistic approach to disaster management, with initiatives on all fronts.
One of such initiatives achieved a major breakthrough in the area of search and rescue and epidemic evacuation, with the signing of the instrument by stakeholders, at a ceremony presided over by the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan (GCON), who is also the Chairman of the Governing Council of NEMA.
The search and Rescue and Epidemic Evacuation Plan was conceived in 2006, a period that witnessed unprecedented scale of air disasters, thereby exposing the inadequacy of search and rescue operations in the country. Search and rescue operations were bedeviled by inter-agency conflict and distrust, wasteful duplication of efforts and unwarranted competition.
NEMA took the initiative to work out strategies towards achieving a sound and efficient response plan which all stakeholders in disaster management will identify with. It is imperative that as stakeholders in disaster management, we should have a system in place whereby we could all draw on our collective strengths to build a formidable group of highly mobile, motivated, dedicated and competently trained workforce of disaster managers.”
A beautiful aspect of the workings of this agency is the activation of its early warning system. In most parts of the developed world, government agencies do not wait for disasters to happen before providing succour. Agencies of Government spend huge resources to run and maintain early warning systems to reduce the consequences of disasters some of which are inevitable like natural disasters.
The Director General of NEMA said his office in accordance with the Act establishing the National Emergency Management Agency, the Agency has the function of collating data from the relevant Agencies so as to enhance forecasting, planning and field operation of disaster management.
To achieve this, the Agency is coordinating the activities on early warning by bringing together the practicing communities and user communities. In May 2008 the Agency organized a workshop to discuss factors militating against early warning in the country and also identify ways to implement it by looking at the four key areas: risk knowledge, dissemination, response capability and warning services.
In the area of risk knowledge the Agency is working with UNICEF, WHO and other major stakeholders to develop Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment for the whole country. The Agency has also started working with communities to develop their response capability as the first responders to disasters, through simulations, training, seminars and other working relations with all its stakeholders.
For proper coordination and smooth working relationship, the Agency has developed the Search and Rescue and Evacuation Plan which has been signed by all major stakeholders. This would strengthen the response capability of the stakeholders.
All we can say in conclusion is that this strategic agency need all the support from the government and all stakeholders to succeed in the execution of the mandate for which it was established.
The Agency must practically involve civil society groups in seeking to achieve her mandate. The organized civil society groups ought to be better mobilized and motivated as committed patriots to assist in the pragmatic education, enlightenment and creating the necessary awareness to the citizenry on the urgent need to prepare for emergency situations and to avoid causing some man-made disasters.
Emmanuel Onwubiko heads
The Human Rights Writers’
Association of Nigeria.
