By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mr Mustapha Habib Ahmad, has stressed the need to adopt and sustain cost-saving methods.
He said this has become necessary following the economic downtown occasioned by the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr Ahmad was recently at the office of his counterpart at the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, to seek the agency’s collaboration on the use of ICT infrastructure and digital platform with a view to ensuring timely and lifesaving search and rescue operations.
He informed the NITDA boss that his organisation has the statutory mandate to seek collaborative support between the two agencies.
According to him, NEMA’s Act empowers it to manage human and natural disasters as well as support Nigerians in distress and mitigate the impact of such calamities, thereby building the culture of resilience on Nigerians.
He added that the country was faced with wide-ranging disasters such as insurgent activities ravaging the North East, communal conflicts, kidnappings and banditry, annual floods and most recently the COVID-19 global pandemic.
“Resources at the agency’s disposal no doubt have been overstretched and can barely meet the various disaster challenges across the nation,” the NEMA DG said.
Mr Ahmad stated that he approached NITDA and other stakeholders as part of efforts to address disaster risk management in Nigeria.
He said the agency can specifically assist NEMA’s zonal territorial and operational offices with real-time and sudden onset disaster communication, video conferencing, collection of damage and loss assessment data to enable timely lifesaving search and rescue operations as well as deployment of humanitarian support in the right time.
In his remarks, the NITDA DG promised to work with the agency to achieve its goals, noting that as the government apex IT regulatory body, it was saddled with the mandate of developing and regulating the use of ICT in Nigeria.
He further said NITDA is also required to deploy its expertise on virtually all aspects of human and operational endeavours that require the application of digital technology which NEMA is not an exception.
He described NEMA’s operations as one that requires the application of modern technology, adding that “to work effectively and efficiently you need ICT; technology can help you get insight and predict a disaster even before it happens.”
He said modern technology will in no small measure positions agencies like NEMA to always be on their toes ahead of any emerging situation easily, quickly, and conveniently as well as providing useful information that will make the agency take proactive measures.
The DG assured the agency of NITDA’s unalloyed commitment to incorporating it into its Digital Transformation Working Group (DTWG) to facilitate organizing capacity building for their personnel, to have a full grasp of the process, when where and how to deploy and apply the technology appropriately.
He also expressed NITDA’s readiness to key into providing technology guide on effective communication methods with their Zonal and State Offices for quick, easy and convenient information dissemination of locations for disaster.
Mr Abdullahi used the occasion to congratulate his counterpart at DG NEMA on his recent appointment, describing his task as onerous that requires sustained and strengthened partnerships for him to succeed in his duties due to its magnitude and impact on distressed Nigerians.
