NEMA Sensitize Stakeholders on Flood Management.
Group photograph of Disaster and Humanitarian Actors at a one day stakeholders sensitisation programme on flood management in Maiduguri.
By Dauda Iliya
The North East zonal office of the National Emergency Management Agency NEMA has organised a one-day sensitisation programme on flood management.
The Zonal Coordinator Sirajo Garba said the programme was organised to strengthen synergy between the Agency and other stakeholders towards mitigating the effect of flood in Borno state and the entire region.
He explained that the Zonal office has carried out vulnerability test of flood prone areas across the state and have been sensitising people living on water ways and river banks to relocate to safer locations.
Alhaji Sirajo however expressed concern that some communities in parts of the metropolis have converted drainage networks constructed by the state government into waste disposal point, noting that its one of the contributing factors of flooding.
He commended the state government for embarking on desilting of drainage networks across the state and called on the public to imbibe the culture of environmental hygiene.
“NEMA North East zonal office has been proactive and that is why it convened this stakeholders meeting to discuss how work together as a team irrespective of Agency or Organisation to avert devastating effect of flood in the state” Sirajo said.
Humanitarian Affairs Officer United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Activities Ballama Mustapha said the United Nations in collaboration with National Emergency Management Agency recently organised training for officials of NEMA and State Emergency Management Agencies of the thirty six states on flood disaster management and conducting needs assessment.
He explained that at the end of the training, participants resolved to adopt a uniform template of data collection known as Global Rapid Post-disaster Damage Estimation Approach GRADE.
Representative of Borno State Emergency Management Agency SEMA Ali Mbusube described the programme as timely and will strengthen collaborative effort to mitigate flood.
The meeting was attended security agencies, Nigeria Red Cross, Federal and State Fire Service, United Nation Agency, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons and other government agencies.
