In its commitment towards mitigating disaster risk in Nigeria, the National Emergency Management Agency NEMA is seeking support and stronger collaboration with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on the use of ICT Infrastructure and Digital platform to ensure timely and life-saving search and rescue operations.
This need was communicated during a courtesy visit by the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer, NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi CCIE, to the office of the Director-General of NEMA, Mustapha Habib Ahmad.
Mallam Abdullahi congratulated the DG NEMA on his recent appointment, describing his task as an onerous one that requires sustained and strengthened partnerships to succeed in his duties owing to its magnitude and impact on distressed Nigerians.
Abdullahi mentioned that NITDA as a government apex IT regulatory body is saddled with the mandate of developing and regulating the use of ICT in Nigeria and is equally within its purview to deploy its expertise on virtually all aspects of human and operational endeavours that require the application of digital technology which NEMA is not an exception.
He described NEMA’s operations as one that requires the application of modern technology to work effectively and efficiently, get insight and predict a disaster even before it happens.
He noted that modern technology will in no small measure position agencies like NEMA to always be on their toes ahead of any emerging situation easily, quickly, and conveniently as well as providing useful information that will make the agency take proactive measures.
Consequently, Abdullahi assured NEMA of NITDA’s unalloyed commitment to have the agency incorporated into its Digital Transformation Working Group (DTWG) to facilitate and organize capacity building for their personnel, have a full grasp of the process and understand when, where and how to deploy and apply the technology appropriately.
He reiterated that NITDA is ready to key into providing a technological guide on effective communication methods with their Zonal and State Offices for quick, easy, and convenient information dissemination of locations for disaster.
On his part, the Director-General of NEMA said the visit was to further intimate NITDA management on his Agency’s statutory mandate and seek collaborative support between the two agencies.
According to him, NEMA’s Act empowers it to manage human and natural disasters, support Nigerians in distress and mitigate the impact of such calamities, thereby building the culture of resilience in Nigerians. He noted that the country is faced with wide-ranging disasters such as the insurgence ravaging the North East, communal conflicts, kidnappings and banditry, annual floods and most recently the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Speaking further, Ahmad mentioned that the resources at the agency’s disposal has been overstretched and can barely meet the various disaster challenges across the nation.
However, they’ve resolved to seek collaborative ties with stakeholders which NITDA is critical to the realization of mitigating disaster risk management in Nigeria being the country’s apex IT regulator.
One of the areas that require NITDA’s intervention is to assist in making up NEMA’s Zonal Territorial and Operational offices more effective, to have real-time and sudden onset disaster communication, video conferencing, collection of damage and loss assessment data to enable timely life-saving search and rescue operations as well as deployment of humanitarian support in the right time.
On the economic downtown occasioned due to the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic, the NEMA Boss said it has become imperative for their agency to further explore and sustain cost-saving methods in their operations.
