From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
In a bid to reduce risks associated with disasters at the grassroots level, the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on Wednesday inaugurated Local Emergency Management Committees (LEMCs) across the 23 local government areas of the state.
The state through Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) in collaboration with Christian Aid under the Disaster Risk Reduction and Social Safety (DRaSS) project, organised the inauguration, planned to cascade safety awareness, disaster prevention and mitigation at the grassroots.
Speaking to newsmen on the sideline of the inauguration held at a hotel in Kaduna, the governor, who was represented by the Commissioner, Human Services and Social Development, Hajiya Hafsat Baba, restated the commitment of his administration to doing everything constitutionally possible to create or support courses that can make the state safer.
‘We believe emergency is everyone’s concern and no one can tell when disasters like flood or fire outbreak will happen. So, this inauguration of LEMCs is timely for us to be able to handle emergencies at the local level while calling for help where necessary and the development partners that are working with us in the state can also key into this opportunity so we can have a safer Kaduna State,’ the governor said.
Talking about how the committees would fund their activities he said, ‘certainly if there is the need to create budget lines for this both at the local government and the state levels, that will be done through the responsible ministries, departments and agencies of the government both at the local and state levels.
‘We hereby solicit the support of our people to make this a success. We want to ensure that we prevent disasters from happening rather than managing them when they happen.
‘Let us also abide by building plans – avoid building in waterways, avoid indiscriminate dumping of refuse, increase good management of electrical appliances at homes and workplaces so we can collectively prevent some of these disasters,’ he added.
Senior Programme Coordinator, Disaster Management and Peace Building, Christian Aid, Dr Bamidele Emmanuel, told Daily Sun that his organisation took the inauguration very important because ‘this is the structure or platform that supposed to be at the local government level as far as disaster management and risk reduction is a concern.’
To him, ‘we want to see a more proactive response when it comes to issues of disaster management not only in action when disaster has occurred but to see how people are sensitised, awareness is created so people get to know about hazards that can translate into disaster in their environment and how to mitigate some of these disasters if eventually occurred in as much as the effect is not so devastating.’
The Chairman, Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) and Chairman of Lere Local Government, Abubakar Buba, promised that all the LG chairmen especially their vices who serve as Chairmen of the newly inaugurated committees would work together with stakeholders to achieve mutual responses to disaster management and risk reduction in their respective local councils.