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From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) disclosed on Monday that 2020 flooding killed 68 people across 35 states, including the FCT.
The Agency confirmed that 2020 flooding had devastating impact and bad experience on over 129,000 people in 320 Local Government Areas (LGAs), thus leading to the loss of lives, destruction of houses and also washed away farmlands across the country, thereby, having negative impact on food security.
NEMA Director General, Muhammadu Muhammed, disclosed the information in his remarks at an event to review the actions or steps taken by NEMA and other relevant agencies against the 2020 flooding in Abuja.
The NEMA boss explained that, essentially, the action review exercise was geared towards improving performance by reflecting on past activities or experiences, thereby avoiding mistakes and replicating successes.
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He said: “After Action Review tool is a means to hold our institutions to high reliability organizations. It’s one method by which we at NEMA have chosen to capture lessons learnt and identify recommended changes for implementation.
“The main thematic areas that needs to be focused during this review meeting include coordination, policy and procedures, strategic level muliti-agency coordination and decision making, training and staffing, preparedness and contingency planning, and information and data collection.
“We invited NEMA zonal, territorial and operational offices, the State Emergency Management Agencies, relevant Ministries, Department and Agencies; and Dam Managers among others to enhance disaster risk reduction governance and to ensure the report of this review is cascaded to all levels, vertically and horizontally.”
The NEMA boss admitted that flood hazard management as well as other natural or man-made emergency is a multi-agency responsibility, hence challenging Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to collaborate, cooperate and coordinate with NEMA in subsequent emergency responses.
Director General, Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NHISA), Clement Nze, in his remarks, admitted that flooding had devastating impact on source of livelihood of Nigerians, maintaining that the Agency will continue to do its best to keep Nigerians aware of pending dangers of flood.
