The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Director General, Mustapha Habib, has said the Federal Government would evacuate Nigerians from Niger Republic as a result of the coup, if need be.
He spoke on the side of the National Emergency Coordination Forum (ECF) meeting on flooding, yesterday in Abuja,
“If we get there, we will look at it. But we are not there yet,” he said.
Meanwhile, Habib said NEMA and other agencies were ready to mitigate this year’s flooding through sensitisation and distribution of kits to flood-prone communities.
He explained that the event was to foster partnership, collaboration and cooperation among relevant stakeholders in emergency management in the country.
He said: “The meeting was organised to enhance our preparedness and the coordination. There are so many things that I had to dig deep.
“There are so many things that ought to be out for the people and this has been done somewhere. We have to bring disaster management to its peak. We meeting with national stakeholders. We have lost 5 lives so far.”
According to him, “Coordination is a vital component of disaster management which needs to be given adequate attention. In line with NEMA’s mandate of coordinating emergency preparedness, mitigation and response activities across the country, the Agency has dimmed it fit to resuscitate the ECF.
“This is to foster partnership, collaboration and cooperation among relevant stakeholders in emergency management in the country. The platform is apt in view of the various emergencies we are currently being faced with, in Nigeria.
“The insurgency in the North East, the banditry challenge in the North West, the communal conflicts in North-Central and the flood disaster across the country are points of reference.
“You will recall that the 2022 flood disaster claimed 665 lives, displaced2,437,411 persons and affected 4,476,867 persons.
“We have already started experiencing flood in some parts of the country this year. This calls for concerted effort so as to address it and many other disasters.
“The ECF is therefore an avenue for stakeholders to come together to discuss humanitarian challenges being faced by the citizens as a result of these disasters/emergencies and to proffer ways of mitigating their impacts on citizens.”