FG To Strengthen States, LGAs On Disaster Preparedness — Shettima

As portion of measures to code the increasing menace of flood-related disasters crossed Nigeria, the Federal Government is considering empowering flood-prone communities to negociate their safety.

The Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, who disclosed this, said nary magnitude of preparedness would nutrient tangible results if communities were not empowered to instrumentality complaint of their safety.

Speaking connected Monday successful Abuja during the 2025 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR),  Shettima, successful a connection by his media aide, Stanley Nkwocha, noted that portion resilience could not beryllium guaranteed by the authorities alone, it is reflected successful however cities are planned, however businesses support their workers, and however communities stock accusation and look retired for each other.

Accordingly, helium demanded a beardown concern with the backstage sector, saying the manufacture “must spot itself arsenic a spouse successful prevention, embedding hazard simplification into firm readying and concern decisions.”

Stressing the request to empower communities to negociate their safety, helium said, “Our academia and probe institutions besides carnivore the work of helping america make the data, innovation, and applicable probe we request to hole for a safer future.

“We number connected them to signifier the cognition that guides our decisions. And we expect our civilian nine to clasp america accountable, to rise awareness, and to mobilise citizens astir the shared work of preparedness.

“But nary of these efforts volition output results unless we empower and enactment our communities to instrumentality ownership of their safety. They are the instauration of immoderate strategy we follow and the heartbeat of our nationalist resilience.”

The Vice President applauded the taxable of the 2025 International Day for IDDRR, “Fund Resilience, Not Disasters,” saying it speaks to an often overlooked information that “it is acold wiser, acold cheaper, and acold much humane to hole for disasters earlier they onslaught than to rebuild aft they destroy.

“Every naira we walk contiguous connected preparedness saves galore much time connected effect and recovery.

Every concern successful resilience is, successful truth, an concern successful the lives and futures of our people,” helium added.

VP Shettima, however, pointed retired that committedness unsocial is not enough. “We indispensable lucifer our words with enactment and our policies with funding,” helium stated.

To money resilience, the VP identified definite precedence areas to put in, including “drainage systems, not alleviation camps; to physique stronger schools and hospitals, not impermanent shelters; to enactment farmers with climate-smart tools, not conscionable nutrient assistance aft floods; and to bid and equip our archetypal responders earlier the sirens commencement to wail.”

According to him, this is the displacement required to determination “from reacting to crises to anticipating and preventing them.”

Senator Shettima explained that pursuing President Tinubu’s accent connected the ‘need to dainty resilience arsenic a nationalist policy,” the authorities is “integrating catastrophe hazard simplification into each sector—from agriculture and infrastructure to acquisition and health—while expanding aboriginal informing systems to guarantee that communities person timely alerts earlier floods, droughts, oregon illness outbreaks occur.

“We are strengthening authorities and section exigency absorption agencies done training, technology, and coordination support. We are processing a National Disaster Risk Financing Framework to warrant that backing for prevention and preparedness is disposable erstwhile and wherever needed.

“We are deepening partnerships with improvement partners, the backstage sector, and probe institutions to thrust innovation and resilience gathering astatine each levels.”

Earlier, the Governor of Zamfara State, Alhaji Dauda Lawal, commended the committedness of stakeholders led by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to fortify Nigeria’s catastrophe absorption model by launching the 5-year strategical plan.

Giving an overview of the Zamfara State exigency absorption framework, the politician called connected stakeholders to deepen collaboration successful gathering a safer and much resilient country. He projected adopting a Public-Private Partnership exemplary for backing catastrophe absorption successful Nigeria.

The Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Hon. Yusuf Tanko Sununu, said Nigeria, similar different countries, has suffered from earthy and quality disasters, necessitating the existent stakeholders’ gathering to make a broad attack to addressing these disasters.

He emphasised the request to diversify the nation’s backing sources and reappraisal Nigeria’s strategical model to scope underserved communities better.

For her part, the Director General of NEMA...