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However,
between 1972 and 1973 Nigeria was hit by a devastating drought
which affected devastation to the socio- economy of the Nation
and resulted to loss of lives and property worth millions of Naira. This made it
imperative for the government to consider a response body to
take care of disaster issues because of its serious and adverse
effects to the life of her citizens. Thus the establishment of
National Emergency Relief Agency (NERA) by Decree 48 of 1976,
which was conceived as an Inter-Ministerial Committee, charged
with the task of collecting and distributing relief materials to
disaster victims. This function of NERA with regards to Disaster
Management was very limited because of the scope under which it
operated.
In 1990, Nigeria along with other member countries of the United
Nations set up a National Committee for the
International Decade for Natural
Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). The Nigerian
Inter-Ministerial body set up four sub-committees, with NERA
retaining membership in each sub-committee, to address natural
disasters reduction in Nigeria. A working group was also
inaugurated with a representative from NERA to work out a
situation report on Natural Disaster reduction for the country
for the remaining years in the decade. This report was submitted
in May 1994 and after this submission, the committee ceased to
exist. This brought back the task of drawing up a National
Agenda on the issue of disaster management in all its
ramifications.
In 1993, the government, based on the objectives and goals of
the IDNDR decided to expand the scope of managing
disasters to include all the areas of disaster management. This
included prevention, mitigation, response and recovery.
Therefore,
Decree 119 of 1993 thus raised the Status of the Agency to an
independent body under the Presidency, with the functions of
formulating general policies and guidelines relating to
management of disasters in Nigeria and friendly countries.
In 1997, having realized the obvious shortcomings of NERA in the
management of disasters, the management of NERA under the
leadership of the then Director, Mrs. Oluremi Olowu, organized a
National Workshop involving major stakeholders in disaster
management in Nigeria including Oil Companies, construction
companies, government and non-governmental organisations and
representatives of UNDP. The Workshop deliberated extensively on
a number of issues and considered several critical success and
survival factors for effective disaster Management in Nigeria
and came up with a communiquè which:
a) Noted the need to expand the functions of the National
Emergency Relief Agency (NERA) to include proper
management of Disasters in the country, to amend the decree
setting up NERA
and to change the name of the Agency to National Emergency
Management Agency (NEMA).
b) Noted the need to structure the new agency along the
following areas.
Search and Rescue
Policy and Strategy
Information, Education and Prevention
Administration, Finance and Logistics
Relief and Rehabilitation
Research and Planning
c) Noted that appropriate budgetary allocations should be
made for the operations of the Agency.
d) Suggested the need for an Interim committee to be put in
place immediately to study the deliberations and recommendations
of the workshops towards implementation. |
