Early warning systems in Nigeria

Yushau A. Shuaib in the Daily Champion (Nigeria) supplies some detail on how one nation is responding to early warning issues for drought: Advancement in technology has eased the tasks of meteorologists in providing near accurate predictions on weather conditions and environmental changes in given societies.

The technology is applied for forecasting and early warning alert systems as it has gone beyond mere weather forecasts. Some latest technologies are being deployed to detect likelihood and potentials of natural disaster like hurricane, flooding, earthquakes among others. While the accuracy of some of the forecasts and early warnings may be disputed, precautionary measures are always advocated to avert such natural calamities in any case.

In Nigeria, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) recently sent an early warning alert on likelihood of drought in some states in the northern part of Nigeria. The Director General of the agency, retired Air Vice Marshall Mohammed Audu-Bida said that the drought alert became necessary to enable the governments of the states to be affected to make adequate plans, including sensitization of farmers, contingency stockpiling and networking with focal institutions for effective mitigation of likely negative consequences of the climate condition.

The NEMA boss said the agency has sent official letters to the states that may be affected, mostly in the North-East and North-Western Nigeria. The agency is reputed to have some state-of-the-art facilities that include Geographic Information System (GIS) Laboratory and Cospa-Sarsat, a satellite aided tracking technology for responding to distress signals from aviation, maritime and land users.

…The warning is quite instructive because it was discovered that the same agency in the past had issued official letters to states and relevant institutions warning them on various issues that required urgent attention.

…While the agency may indeed be proactive in its mandates to inform and educate Nigerians on disaster risk reduction (DRR) and providing early warning signals to agencies of government, the recent alert by the agency on the likelihood of drought grabbed the national headlines with more attention given by the foreign media. Surprisingly, sceptics still doubt the veracity of the forecast….

Satellite image of the Benue River in Nigeria, shot by NASA