The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mustapha Abeeb Muhammed,has raised the alarm of a more disastrous flooding incident in 2023.
He also said that the refusal of state governors to heed its warnings of impending floods in 2022, caused the natural disaster in parts of the country.
He spoke on Monday when he appeates before the Senate Committee on Special Duties headed by Senator Yusuf Yusuf from ( APC Taraba state) to defend the 2023 budget proposal of his agency .
He advised that governments at all levels should be ready for the challenges ahead by establishing local emergency committees to mitigate the devastating impacts of floods and other disasters across the country.
“Despite the fact that states are collecting Ecological and other intervention funds from the federal government, some of them could not boost the standing committee on disaster management and when there is a disaster they look up to the federal government for assistance”, he said.
He added that before the 2022 flood disaster, NEMA wrote about four letters to all states of the federation on the need to set up a local emergency committee to mitigate the impact of floods but only four states heeded the warning.
He disclosed a bottom-up approach in disaster management where the local government is the first respondent followed by the state and if it is beyond what the state can handle, the federal government can then come on board.
“But it is surprising that if there is any disaster, local governments and states look up to NEMA without first providing preliminary support and the manpower and resources at the disposal of NEMA is nothing to write home about. Even what happened in Bayelsa and other states in term casualties can be prevented or minimised if proper arrangements are made” he said
The Senate Committee on Special Duties decried poor budgetary allocation to NEMA and promised to come up with a legislation that would put the agency under the presidency for optimum performance.
It also urged NEMA to get the states engaged and ensure that there are proper plans for people displaced by floods.
“It is high time NEMA go beyond distributing rice, beans and blankets to victims of flood but ensure that you partner with state governments to set up camps for flood victims ” Senator Lilian Ekwunife
Earlier, NEMA boss told the committee that only N774 million is earmarked as capital vote for the agency in 2023, N1.77 billion for personnel cost while a sum of N162 million is proposed for overhead cost in 2023 budget.
