Atiku Urges State Govts to Establish Emergency Committees
From Andy Ekugo in Abuja
Vice President Atiku Abubakar yesterday urged state governments to expedite action on the establishment of the State Emergency Management Committees (SEMC) in accordance with statutory provisions as enshrined in the National Emergency Agency Act 12 of the 1999 Constitution. Atiku said this was imperative because of the concern of Federal Government towards many lives lost and the attendant damage done to our socio-economic life due to the increasing number of natural and man made disasters across the country.
Atiku said this through the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, who represented him at the inaugural conference of Heads of Disaster Management Organisations in Nigeria holding in Abuja.
He emphasised that although Federal Government has a duty to intervene in disasters of large magnitude, the state and the local governments have roles to play in some minor and medium types of disasters.
Urging states that have not established their SEMC to do so urgently, the Vice President further explained that although statutorily, the funding of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) was drawn from a percentage of the Ecological Fund but a recent Supreme Court judgment has affected that source of funding. He said the Federal Government now funds NEMA from its own share of the Federation Account.
This development, according to Atiku, showed that NEMA's funding "is no more as secured as it used to be," and therefore urged states to see themselves as equal partners in disaster management. "We need to know that the world over, financial resources available for disaster management are increasingly becoming limited in the face of compelling demands from other sectors of the economy. We therefore have no choice but to join the international communities in promoting disaster reduction and mitigation activities," he advised.
Earlier in his address, the Director General of NEMA, Alhaji Salihu Makarfi, had urged the organisations participating in the conference to formulate policies, which would provide better management of disasters in the country. He also revealed that NEMA has approval to purchase a Search and Rescue Helicopter to facilitate rescue missions during disasters.
Dr. Johnson Falade of the United Nations revealed that the greatest natural disasters affecting the country are desertification, flooding, draught, gully and sheet erosion. Desertification, he said has already affected 13 out of 15 states in the northern states and overtaken 55 percent of the total land mass of Borno State.
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