A civil society organization, Centre for Disaster Risk and Crisis Reduction, has called for more funding and provision of modern day equipments for National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and other organizations managing and preventing disasters in the country.
The organization noted that this is necessary in order for the agencies responsible for mitigating disasters to be prepared for emergency situations.
Executive Director, Centre for Disaster Risk and Crisis Reduction, Mr. Kolawole Amusat-Gbenla made these declarations while speaking at a stakeholders meeting to commemorate the 2020 international day for disaster reduction in the South West.
Amusat-Gbenla who spoke with journalists on Tuesday in Ibadan, urged governments at all levels to equip agencies responsible for disaster management with modern day equipments.
He noted that disaster is a business that all and sundry must be concerned with.
He said, “Disaster management is a business of all. We have to collectively prepare for it. We are here to celebrate the international day for disaster risk and crisis reduction.
“The day is set aside to create awareness on the crisis people face in their communities.
We are using this medium to call on our government on areas where they needed to build resilient communities in Nigeria.
“We have structures and agencies that can manage disasters but, we still have more to do. When we have structures and agencies and such agencies are not well equipped. The agency that is not well funded, well equipped with not function well”.
Head of Unit, Disaster Management of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Oyo state, Mr. Umar Sheu, declared that findings have revealed that many states, organizations and individuals are not prepared for emergency situations.
Sheu who was represented by Mr. Stephen Adesoji, a Superintendent of Corp, noted that many states, organizations and individuals do not have instruments and gadgets to prevent and minimise disasters. He said that this has indicated that the country is not prepared for emergencies.
Sheu said that government agencies managing disasters, organizations and individuals must be equipped with instruments that can help them minimize disasters.
He said that NSCDC and other agencies managing disasters in the country need modern day equipments to meet the day to day demand for emergencies.
He added that a situation where a state has no functional ambulances, where companies and organizations have no first aid equipments is an indication that Nigeria is not prepared for disasters.
He said, “This tells us how we are responding to disaster management in Nigeria. Look at the number of people that you invited and the number that came.
“Many States and local government areas don’t have ambulances. When they don’t have the equipments how do you want them to respond to emergencies. You cannot give what you don’t have. That is why there is need for more equipments to respond to emergency situations.
“We in NSCDC, we want to mitigate, we don’t want disaster for anybody. That is why we have a department that deals with disasters. We believed that disaster can happen anytime, this is why we are always attending to emergencies.
“Your community members, family members and people around you can be trained in disaster management. We need to catch the young ones, we need to catch them young. What is important to us is human life. It is not all states that have ambulances and other equipments. We need more gadgets to mitigate risks and disasters”.
