THE Director -General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Alhaji Muhammad Sani-Sidi, has alerted West African countries to the increasing incidences of disaster across the zone and advised the governments to take issues of disaster management more seriously to promote safety and development.
Sani-sidi said such disasters, which were more pronounced in developing nations with weak capacity for adaptation, had quite often resulted in large scale devastation, loss of lives and significant ecological dislocation.
Speaking at the opening of the 7th annual consultation of the Regional Committee for Disaster Management in West Africa at the ECOWAS Secretariat, Abuja on Tuesday, the NEMA DG observed that climate change -related challenges had significantly increased the incidences of disasters across the globe in recent years.
He said, "Such disasters which are more pronounced in developing nations with weak capacity for adaptation have quite often resulted in large scale devastation, loss of lives and significant ecological dislocation.
"Similarly, economic losses from disasters, both natural and human induced, have become a recurring phenomena. In 2010, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimated losses from natural catastrophes and human-induced disasters amounted to a staggering $222 billion more than triple the amount of losses in the previous year."
Recalling the flooding in Nigeria in 2012, the Director General explained that the wide-spread flood disaster which occurred in 23 States of the affected 7,705,398 people, displaced 2,157,419, caused the death of 363, destroyed 597,476 houses and resulted in unprecedented ecological damage.
According to him, the 2012 flood was a glaring testimony to the growing intensity of climate change related disasters in Nigeria and indeed the West Africa sub-region.
"Extreme weather conditions, including excessive rainfall, severe windstorm, heat-wave and droughts have become more frequent with adverse effects on the economy, environment, food security, lives and livelihoods. Indeed, the world is increasingly becoming a hostile place to live in," he noted.
Sani-sidi stated that the three-day 2013 consultation among disaster management stakeholders of the ECOWAS community had become quite significant "given our recent experience on wide ranging and increasingly complex cross-boarders emergencies in the sub-region."
The Punch