The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says early preparedness and effective disaster management strategies are key to saving lives and reducing disaster impacts.
This was stated by the Director General of NEMA, Mrs Zubeida Umar on Wednesday at a Lessons Learned Exercise (LLE) workshop for Emergency Preparedness and Response, organised in collaboration with the World Bank.
Represented by Mr Onimode Bandele, the Director of Planning Research and Forecasting, NEMA, Umar said the agency would forestall a repeat of the 2012 and 2022 flood disasters.
“You will all agree with me that there were two landmark flood disasters that Nigeria have witnessed in recent past which were that of 2012 and 2022.
“In 2012, no fewer than 363 people were killed, 5,851 injured, 3,891,314 affected, and 3,871,53 were displaced due to the resulting floods.
“In 2022 also,about 665 people lost their lives, 3,181 injured, 4,476,867 affected and 2,437,411 displaced.
“These were accompanied by economic, agriculture, and livelihood losses,” she said.
According to Umar, the LLE was a major step in this critical period as Nigeria was experiencing climate related hazards such as flooding.
“The purpose of selecting a single focusing event for the LLE is not only to identify what happened during that events or what might have been done differently.
“The World Bank in collaboration with NEMA carried out this LLE in order to understand the systemic opportunities, to develop and strengthen the core element of Nigeria’s emergency preparedness in the national and dub- national levels.
“The focus is to give key government officials and emergency relief entities an opportunity to discuss the country’s systems, procedures, and experiences related to emergency preparedness and response.
“Also, it is to better understand each agency’s perspective, capacities and placement within response operations using the 2022 flood experience,” she said.
The DG whiled commending the World Bank and the Global Fund for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR) for the initiative, urged participants to actively engage in discussions to enhance Nigeria’s emergency response system.