As the Kogi State Government strategises to mitigate the effect of the 2016 flood in the state as predicted by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency recently, the Deputy Governor of the state, Elder Simon Achuba, has said that the Kogi State Emergency Management Agency (KOSEMA) law would soon be in place.
The Deputy Governor, who dropped the hint at a one day workshop on 2016 flood in Kogi state organised by KOSEMA today at Glass House, Government House Lokoja, said the present administration of the state led by Governor Yahaya Bello is putting modalities in place to avoid the disaster of the 2012 flood situation on the people in the state.
He said that part of this move was the setting up of a committee recently to re-position the KOSEMA for it to respond appropriately to emergencies in the state.
Elder Achuba said that the effect of the 2012 flood in the state was devastating, maintaining that it was the reason, coupled with the prediction of NIMET, that the stakeholders meeting was organized to chart a way forward in order to prevent re-occurrence in 2016.
He urged participants at the meeting to come up with workable resolutions that would help the state in tackling further effect of flood situation in the state.
Earlier, the representative of the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Onimade Bamidele, urged the state to take the issue of disaster management seriously like security issues. He further charged the state to quickly pass a bill establishing SEMA in the state, urging it to cross collaborate to achieve the feat.
He also pleaded with the state government to give the SEMA additional utility vehicles to enable it perform optimally.
In her own speech, the Commissioner for Environment and Natural resources, Mrs. Rosemary Osikoya, said the state is taking steps to review the NIMET prediction and respond to the issues in it.
