FEMA harps on capacity building in disaster mgt

By Stanley Onyekwere

The Director General of FCT Emergency Management Agency, (FEMA), Dr Abbas Idriss has identified capacity building as a vital aspect of Disaster Management.

The FEMA DG stated this at the opening ceremony of the ongoing one week strategic Executive Seminar for Nigeria Emergency Management Stakeholders organized by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in Abuja.

Idriss noted that when the drivers of disaster management do not update their skills or not knowledgeable enough, then they will continue to do the wrong thing in a wrong direction.

He commended the tenacity of the Director General of NEMA, Mustapha Ahmed Habib, for having keen interest in building the capacities of State Emergency Management Agencies.

In his words, “ I want to appreciate the Director General of NEMA for putting this executive seminar together for all the participants here.

“You will agree with me that capacity building is a very vital aspect of disaster management, if the drivers of disaster management can not update it and are not knowledgeable enough then we will continue to do a wrong thing in a wrong direction.

“I remember last year, we had the multi agency coordination training and this year we are having another training. This has shown that the Director General is really very interested in building the capacities of the State Emergency Management Agencies.

“ It is very important to note that all of us seated here are the drivers of disaster race production at our local level. We take disaster management to be bottom up and that is how it is suppose to be from the Local Emergency Management Committees to State Emergency Management Agencies then to National Emergency Management Agency.

“ That is how it is supposed to be. But if we are not educated and we are not trained definitely we will be left with nothing but serious disaster affecting multiple number of people in our communities”, he added.

He adds, “ I appeal on behalf of my colleagues that we need more training and capacity building. We thank you most sincerely for this and others that you have done and we look”.