By Rita Iliya
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has called for synergy in disaster management between the agency and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to provide humanitarian relief support to victims of various disaster in Niger.
Hajiya Zainab Sai’du, Head of Operations, NEMA, Minna Operations Office, made the call during a stakeholders meeting with the theme: “NGOs as Stakeholders in Disaster Management’’ on Tuesday in Minna.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the objective of the meeting was to bring together various NGOs providing humanitarian assistance to victims of disasters in the state under one umbrella to help the agency with the rightful data of victims of disasters.
Sai’du explained that disaster management was multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary and everybody’s business, hence all hands must be involved to save lives and property.
She added that it was expedient for players in humanitarian service to work in synergy to avoid unnecessary replication of responsibilities and waste of hard resources.
“We are bringing faith based and community based organisations that deal with humanitarian activities together under one umbrella so that we can help each other out.
“Whenever we want to give humanitarian assistance, we will incorporate these organisations since they are based in communities and they know the rightful victims so that the relief items will get to the right people,” she said.
She said that the agency was empowered by law to regulate and coordinate all organisations providing humanitarian support.
She also added that the meeting was to come up with a way forward to make humanitarian service better in the state.
According to her, NEMA is the only agency of the Federal Government that manages all disasters and collates data from all spheres of disaster management.
She urged the NGOs to take information sharing with the agency as a national service, adding that NEMA was currently buildings a database for disaster management in the country.
“This makes it very important for us to build a viable working synergy between us for the sake of the distressed and humanity,” she added.
In his remark, the Director-General, Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), Alhaji Ahmed Inga, represented by Hajiya Halima Adamu, pledged to continue to provide support to NEMA for the smooth running of its activities in the state.
Also, Alhaji Suleiman Dada, the District Head of Maikunkele, promised to continue to support NEMA for the smooth running of its activities.
Similarly, Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Airforce, Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps and Nigeria Red Cross, promise to support NEMA in providing security and aid to the agency.
In their separate remarks, the NGOs lauded the agency for the initiative of bringing them under one umbrella to properly coordinate their activities and ensure that relief items get to the actual victims of disasters in the state.(NAN)
