- •NEMA, NiMet tasked on flood mitigation strategies
Governors of the 36 states have hailed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu “for showing leadership by extending opportunity to governors across party lines by asking them to nominate competent people from their fold for appointment into boards of parastatals”.
This formed part of the resolutions at Tuesday’s meeting of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), where the governors requested the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) to develop a comprehensive partnership framework to drive their engagement with states.
In a communiqué issued yesterday by NGF’s Chairman and Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, the governors also commiserated with the governors of Plateau and Zamfara states over the incessant killings in parts of their states and solicited the cooperation of all in combating banditry across the country.
The communiqué said the governors “received a briefing from the Director Generals of NEMA and NiMet on flooding across the country and deliberated on urgent proactive measures to save lives, livelihood, critical infrastructure and safeguarding national food security.
“Members resolved to collaborate with relevant agencies at arriving at a comprehensive and federation response while leveraging the 2023 Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP), Annual Flood Outlook (AFO), flood risk maps, and the Climate Related Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation Strategy.
“NEMA briefed the governors on how to achieve shared goals of building a safer and more resilient Nigeria in the face of growing rate of occurrence of disasters globally.
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“NEMA urged the governors to: set up functional State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMAs), Local Emergency Management Committees (LEMCs) and community volunteers with adequate legal backing, funding and trained manpower; support knowledge, assets and experience sharing between states, NEMA and other responsible partners; support the signing of Mutual Aid Agreements between states as disasters hit different geographical spaces at different times; encourage private sector participation as part of its corporate social responsibility; and foster policy alignment and community engagement for Disaster Risk Reduction”.
According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) every $1 invested in risk reduction and prevention can save up to $15 in post-disaster recovery.
The governors also received the United Nations (UN) Secretary General, Mrs. Amina J. Mohammed, in company of education activist, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and UN Messenger of Peace, Miss Malala Yousafzai, who chose a girl-child advocacy visit to Nigeria to mark her 26th birthday.
The NGF said: “Malala expressed her desire to see efforts at addressing gender discrimination, gender inclusion and girl-child education sustained and deepened.
“Members expressed their readiness to work with the UN and Malala Fund in advancing gender responsive and inclusive policies, including access to quality education for girls and other affirmative action processes in the country,” among others.
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