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Nigeria: Emergency Mismanagement Agency
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This Day (Lagos)
OPINION
28 April 2008
Posted to the web 29 April 2008
Kunle Akogun
Lagos
More than five weeks after the Beechcraft 1900D aircraft belonging to Wings Aviation Limited was declared missing, relevant federal government agencies in the search and rescue mission have virtually given up and the whereabouts of the chartered plane and its crew of three continues to be shrouded in mystery.
Since the incident, so much has been said and written on the gross incompetence of the nation's aviation regulation authorities, especially the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), but little has been said about the ignoble role of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the body statutorily charged with disaster management and on whose desk the buck of search and rescue in cases of emergency stops.
From what we have witnessed so far in the slip shod handling of the search for the missing Beechcraft plane and previous major incidents of this nature, it is doubtful if NEMA, as presently constituted, has the infrastructural capacity or political will to manage any disaster or emergency situation in the country. It would appear as if the agency is perennially bogged down by the evil of bureaucracy, lack of requisite tools or simply management complacency.
And so, rather than being proactive and being alive to its duties in times of emergency, NEMA simply sits back and contends itself with post-disaster routine of collecting, managing and distributing relief materials to victims. Surely, this is a lucrative venture to engage in, if you know what I mean! Like most government agencies and parastatals here, the missing link in NEMA's efficiency chain is the crucial concept of social responsibility as identified on this page last Tuesday. If those in charge of this Agency are socially responsible, they would be more proactive in their approach to their duties, the crux of which is to save lives and properties through prompt response to emergency calls to rescue victims and mitigate the deleterious effects of disasters when they occur. We all watched on cable television the superb rescue of victims of the 2006 Tsunami disaster by a US agency that is alive to its responsibilities.
But NEMA's ignoble role in the missing plane saga has once again spotlighted the stark helplessness of our search and rescue operation. The Agency is empowered by Act 12 of 1999 as amended by Act 50 of the same year gives the Agency the statutory wherewithal to take action anytime disaster occurs anywhere in the country. There is thus no doubt that the success or failure of any other agency or organization in the course of emergency management rests entirely on NEMA. To crown this, Part VI Section 20 (I) of the same NEMA Act empowers the Agency to "demand by requisition from any organization, any available equipment, facilities or personnel, which may assist in a speedy and effective search and rescue (SAR) operation and any other form of disaster operation during period of emergency".
The import of this provision of the NEMA Act is that the Agency has unhindered access to equipment and personnel holdings from any organization in the country and these can be called up at any time necessary. Given this power, the abysmal performance of NEMA in the search for the missing Beechcraft plane is most condemnable. In the wake of the cacophony of confusion, summersault and double-speak that characterized the reactions of various agencies to the missing plane saga, NEMA had claimed that it recruited cattle rearers, hunters and farmers to help in the search for the plane. But if one may ask: Did NEMA exhaust all avenues before resorting to this highly embarrassing primitive search and rescue method?
I recall that while the feeble search lasted, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro did not hide his readiness to deploy his men and officers to join in the search effort, but he was reported to have said that he never received any message to that effect from NEMA. Also, men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps as well as the Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Air Force did not show up for the search throughout the five days the actual search lasted. One then wonders why NEMA would refuse to utilize the statutory provisions of the Act that established it by calling all the stakeholders, especially the Armed Forces that have been trained to endure any difficult terrain or environment, which the Agency claimed has hampered its non-existing search team for the missing plane.
This is more so as the requirements of Military Aid to Civil Authority (MACA) of the military's statutory responsibility cover the search and rescue operation. It could be recalled that during the Bellview plane crash of October 22, 2005, all stakeholders including the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Navy were at the crash site throughout the five weeks that exercise lasted. The same was also true during the Ikeja Cantonment bomb blast, Kano air crash and several other disasters.
So, why was NEMA's response to the missing Beechcraft plane different? Between 2004 and 2005, NEMA held three different workshops at Ilorin, Ibadan and Calabar in collaboration with the Armed Forces, the Police, the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), the Security and Civil Defence Corps, private sector and other stakeholders on the need to establish disaster response units (DRU) in the respective organizations. In the area of search and rescue, the Armed Forces are seen as the primary agency for national timely response, thus the incorporation of their DRUs into the search and rescue operations of NEMA by its past administrations. But this commendable initiative appears to have been jettisoned by the current management of the Agency under Air Vice Marshal Audu Bida (rtd), without providing a better alternative.
So, the pertinent question now is: if NEMA feels it is ill-equipped for the job entrusted to it, why has its management refused to bring this incapacity to the notice of appropriate authorities? To be sure, NEMA is too crucial an agency to be toyed with. And except some people profit from disasters and emergency situations, there is no reason why the Agency should not be given priority attention by the government in terms of prompt funding of its operations, provision of modern equipment and adequate staff training, to strengthen its emergency response preparedness as well as enhance the performance of its search and rescue functions. But since NEMA has never been reported to have ever complained of shortage of tools and materials for effective and efficient performance of its duties, it is assumed that all is well in that regard.
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The only problem can then be situated in management deficiency and lack of appreciation on the part of the Emergency Management Agency for the need for urgent response to emergency situations. This is the real clog in the wheels of the Agency's efficiency. Now then, will somebody please rescue NEMA from itself?
I have been reading your comments on the security situation in Nigeria including the efforts that have been put into place to manage different security related challenges.
I have also realised the increasing number of hostage / kidnap related incidents that claimed a number of lives in the past year.
On the backdrop of these challenges, we found it necessary to introduce our service to the NSCDC in an effort to skill personnel on methods to deal with crisis related incidents.
Would therefore assist us to get into contact with the department?
Thanking you
Derartu
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