The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, says flood killed about 68 people, while the devastating impact affected 35 States of the federation including Federal Capital Territory FCT, 320 Local Government Areas, with over 129,000 people affected.
The Director General of NEMA, Muhammadu Muhammed stated this at the opening of the 2020 flood After Action Review Technical meeting’ with State Emergency Management Agencies (SEMAs) and other key stakeholders in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
Muhammed explained that the incident also posed a big threat to the nation as it washed away farm lands leaving their owners to grapple with the attendant losses.
To address the challenge, a flood after action Review Technical meeting was organised in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital to proffer solutions to the challenges facing the emergency sector related to flood disaster and management in Nigeria.
According to Muhammed, the meeting is a platform to enhance disaster risk reduction governance.
” The technical meeting therefore is planned to review various activities carried out in respect of 2020 flood preparedness, mitigation and response with a view to capturing lessons learnt and to make recommendations that can improve the ability of our Institutions to coordinate actions that will guide future actions on flooding in Nigeria. An after action review also geared towards improving performance by reflecting on activities, thereby avoiding past mistakes and replicating successes, capture lesson learned and identify recommended changes for implementation,’’ he explained.
Muhammed reiterated the agency’s commitment to support State Emergency Management Agency, SEMAs to build their capacities and enhance their response capacity.
“I wish to say that we are aware of the challenges some of SEMAs are facing such as low capacity and use of ad-hoc staff causing inconsistency in response coordination with NEMA and other relevant stakeholders. Let me reiterate that we are determined to support SEMAs to build their capacities and enhance their response capacity,’’ the NEMA boss stated.
The Director General, Nigeria Hydrological Agency NIHSA, Clement Nzeh, said that there was need to develop plans that would help to build resilience among venerable communities.
Nzeh said; “The year 2020 has been particularly significant, flood had affected all the states in the country causing loss of life, property and livelihood. The impact of flooding on farm lands and farming activities posed a big threat to food security.
“We are all aware of the imputation to farm lands and critical Infrastructure in Kebbi and Jigawa State and by extension to other part of the country, despite the issuance of flood early warning information by NISAH and response measures that were put in place by NEMA and SEMAs. This experience is point to the fact that emergency and disaster preparedness and response is a dynamic circles. Flood disasters are highly prone to climate change and further supported by human activity on the environment. Hence the realisation for an integrated approach to flood management and the need to build the resilience of the vulnerable communities is inevitable,’’
On behalf of the SEMA’s Executives, the Chairman SEMA Kebbi State, Mr. Sani Doododo, noted that the meeting would broaden the understanding of states emergency agencies in responding to flood related crisis.
“Flooding has come and now subsided so we have to look at the aftermath of it. What are the consequences that we have seen so that we can go back to our drawing board and see what we can do to solve the problem in the future? Honestly we have seen a lot of devastating flood this year, coming here today we are going to reason together with all the stakeholders and come up with a strategic plan to tackle the issue.
“Now Harmattan season is approaching, this when we have a lot of fire outbreak disasters, you see we are yet to deal with Covid-19 Pandemic, the flooding is also here and now harmattan is around the corner…All these are serious issues so coming here gives us the opportunity to reason and get ideas one another especially from experts, then go back home and implement what we have learnt.’’
Stakeholders were urged to focus more on coordination, policy and procedures, strategic level multi-agency coordination and decision making as well as training and staffing, preparedness and contingency planning, information and data collection.
Mercy Chukwudiebere
