The National Emergency
Management Agency (NEMA) has in Abuja pledged continuous follow-up on NIMET’s Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP) so as to avert weather-related disasters in the country.
NEMA’s Assistant Director (Planning, Research and Forecast), Mr Alhasan Nuhu, made the pledge when speaking to newsmen after the opening ceremony of the NIMET 2014 SRP Follow-Up Workshop.
Nuhu had represented the NEMA Director-General, Mr Muhammed Sidi, at the workshop.
He said NEMA had consistently followed NiMet’s SRP from the first phase “with a workshop of its critical stakeholders to deliberate on the prediction for the betterment of the country’’.
Nuhu said NEMA and its shareholders would in two weeks time further meet to deliberate on the SRP.
He said the agency would, at the end of the meeting, articulate disaster management implications which normally bring out early warning messages to relevant sectors.
“The SRP always has implications for the health, agriculture, transport and other sectors as it entails issues of disaster management.
“We will assimilate the SRP and send it out to all relevant authorities and those likely to be affected or the communities at risk,’’ the NEMA assistant director said.
He said this alert would enable them “understand the warnings and to be able to act on them”.
“So, we will try to facilitate linkage between early warning and early action and also by being prepared ourself,’’ Nuhu said.
Mr Ishiaku Muhammed, representing North Central and West Africa, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), said the organisation’s presence in Nigeria was to contribute to the strengthening of national meteorological services.
He said WMO provides necessary requirements like the basic forecasting, not the country’s actual forecasting.