The National Emergency Management Agency, (NEMA) has said that 662 persons had lost their lives, 3,174 others suffered an injury and 2,430,445 individuals were displaced by the 2022 floods.
The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Mustapha Habib Ahmed said this at the opening ceremony of the one-week Strategic Executive Seminar for NEMA staff and wider Nigerian Emergency Management Stakeholders in Abuja.
He said that thousands of houses, hectares of farmlands, and several critical national assets were destroyed by the raging floods.
“As we are all aware, this event is taking place in the immediate aftermath of the devastating 2022 flood disaster which is unprecedented in the history of Nigeria.”
Ahmed said that NEMA in collaboration with State governments and other partnerswase currently working assiduously towards the long-term recovery of impacted communities across the nation.
“In this regard, there is no better time than now for this training program”, Mustapha Ahmed said.
He urged all the participants to use the opportunity to interact with one another, share experiences and develop holistic approaches to disaster and crisis management in Nigeria.
He expressed confidence that the “expert -guidance of our resource persons from the Bournemouth University Disaster Management Centre will surely make this capacity-building program a resounding success.”
In his welcome address, NEMA Director of Human Resource Management, Musa Zakari said that rapid climate changes have increased the frequency of natural disasters across the nation, hence the objective of the seminar is to assist the Agency and its critical stakeholders in providing a unique international brand of disaster management education, training,g and simulation that can augment existing senior officers training provision within the country.
“We may need to re-examine some fundamentally new and profoundly more efficient approach to Disaster Management, Musa Zakari said.
It is hoped that at the end of the week, participants would have acquired enhanced knowledge of how to manage disasters better in their localities.
The seminar is been attended by State emergency management agencies, other critical stakeholders in disaster management, and NEMA Zonal, Territorial and Operations heads.
