Disaster: NEMA harps on enforcement of environmental laws in Nigeria

       

The National Emergency Management Agency NEMA has stressed the need for a better enforcement of existing legal/ regulatory frameworks on environmental laws in the country.

  It said such precautionary measures would help in building resilience against disasters in communities.

odogwublog.com reports that the Agency however, blamed most disasters in Nigeria on communities adamant and indifference to early warning signals by relevant environmental organizations.

NEMA, stated this yesterday at a one-day Workshop on "Community managed early system, building resilience of community and better implementation and enforced laws" held at Abagana Anambra state.

Speaking at the event, south east zonal coordinator of NEMA, Major James Eze, who spoke on behalf of Director- General of the agency, Alhaji Sani Sidi, emphasised that "an early warning system (EWS) remains a major element of disaster risk reduction in any country.

  He noted that, the 2012 flood disaster which wrecked serious havoc in parts of Nigeria, and was "adjudged to be the worst in the half a century would have been highly mitigated if victims of the affected areas were not reluctant to leave disaster prone areas despite the vulnerability of such places.

  "As a matter of fact, the traditional framework of early warning system EWS is composed of three phases, but the ultimate is the capability to react swiftly to a notification, a warning or an alert should
an event of a catastrophe proportion take place"

"The disaster impacts in Nigeria could have been highly mitigated if we had swiftly reacted to the alerts, warnings, and information of an impending catastrophe"

The Zonal coordinator, stressed the need for a robust legal and regulatory frameworks supported by long term political commitment and integrated institutional arrangements to boost the coping capacity of communities in the country, as obtained in modern societies.
   
The workshop which was attended by military and para- military agencies, such the Navy, FRSC, NSCDC, Red Cross, Fire Service, government ministries, amongst others, featured various paper presentations on disaster mitigation.