Director-general of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mustapha Habib Ahmed said 662 persons lost their lives, 3,174 others suffered injury and 2,430,445 individuals were displaced by the 2022 flood.
The NEMA boss stated this at the opening ceremony of the one week strategic executive seminar for NEMA members of staff and other critical stakeholders.
Speaking at the function, Ahmed said that thousands of houses, hectares of farmlands and several critical national assets were destroyed by the raging flood.
He also warned that flood will come in 2023 and earlier preparations will address the challenges to come.
He said, “As we are all aware, this event is taking place in the immediate aftermath of the devastating 2022 flood disaster which is unprecedented in the history of Nigeria.”
Ahmed further said that NEMA in collaboration with state governments and other partners were currently working assiduously towards the long-term recovery of impacted communities across the nation.
He said, “In this regard, there is no better time than now for this training programme”.
He urged all the participants to use the opportunity to interact with one another, share experiences and develop holistic approaches to disaster and crisis management in Nigeria.
“Expert-guidance of our resource persons from the Bournemouth University Disaster Management Centre will surely make this capacity building programme a resounding success,” he said.
Also, NEMA’s director of human resources management, Musa Zakari said rapid changes in climate had resulted in increase in the frequency of natural disasters across the nation, hence the objective of the seminar was to assist the agency and its critical stakeholders in providing unique international brand of disaster management education, training and simulation that can augment existing senior officers training provision within the country.
Zakari said, “We may need to re-examine some fundamentally new and profoundly more efficient approach to disaster management.”