The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Muhammad Sani-Sidi, has been elected as the President of the ECOWAS Regional Committee for Disaster Management in the West Africa.
Sani-Sidi was elected at the 7th annual meeting of the committee held in Abuja under the auspices of ECOWAS, with the participants drawn from the heads of disaster management agencies and international humanitarian organizations in the West African countries.
The election was in recognition of the progress made by Nigeria in advancing the cause of disaster management and providing exemplary leadership for the countries in the region.
An accomplished administrator, Sani-Sidi was appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan in September 2010 as the Director General of NEMA.
At the time of the appointment, he was a member of the Kaduna State Executive Council where he served variously as the Commissioner for Environment and Natural Resources; Works and Transport as well as Culture and Tourism. During same period, was also assigned at various times to supervise the ministries of Health and Finance.
His leadership qualities, especially in the area of disaster mitigation and management, began to manifest while he was in the state cabinet.
Thus, he was credited with the successful demolition of unhealthy and defective structures that were hazardous to the people of Kaduna State and was also responsible for the prompt and timely interventions of the state government in curtailing the spread of contagious diseases at a time.
He at various time chaired the committees on decongestion of Kaduna metropolis; removal of carcasses in public places; decongestion of the federal highways, particularly Tafa and Mararaban Jos; and the cleaning and clearing of garbage in Zaria.
Prior to his appointment into the Kaduna State cabinet, he served as Special Adviser to the Minister of Finance between 2003 to 2007, having been a senior manager in the then National Electric Power Authority.
Since his assumption of office as Director General NEMA, Sani-Sidi has enhanced the image of the agency as a forward looking, dynamic, strategic and proactive organization that is well positioned to address most challenges of disasters in Nigeria.
A member of Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management, International Association of Emergency Managers, The International Emergency Management Society and the World Society of Victomology, he has received several commendation and awards, including that from the Institute of Corporate Administration and the Conference on Disaster, Safety and Security Management and the award.
He also earned the African Business Leadership Award given to him and NEMA as the Best Emergency and Disaster Management Agency of the year 2011 by African Leadership magazine.
Furthermore, his outstanding performance earned NEMA the recognition and award of being the “Most outstanding public Institution in Nigeria”, which was presented September 2011 by Independent Service Delivery Monitoring Group in collaboration with African Independent Television.
Recently, he was also nominated by the Leadership newspaper and conferred with the award as the Leadership Public Officer of the year 2012.
Sani-Sidi, who hails from Kaduna State, has two Masters degrees in Business Administration and International Relations and Diplomacy.
He is married with children.
In another development, The United Nations’ Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordination, Baroness Valerie Amos, has solicited more political will and supports from the government to the National Emergency Management Agency to improve on the management of disasters in the country.
Speaking at the NEMA’s head office in Abuja during her working visit to Nigeria at the weekend, Baroness Amos also called on the organized private sector, civil society organizations and grassroot communities to cooperate with the Agency in the effort to boost disaster management in the country by building structures to reduce risk and increase community resilience.
The United Nations Under Secretary General said she was confident that Nigeria was capable of handling most of the disaster issues in the country, given necessary supports and cooperation to the organs established for disaster management and to also serve as model for other countries in the region.
She noted that the timely response given to the flood of 2012, which devastated many communities, was evidence of progress in disaster management that Nigeria must strive to continuously improve in the face of the increasing global disaster challenges.
Baroness Amos said she was in Nigeria to advocate more political supports to disaster management and visit some locations of the 2012 flood, which her office had given some assistance.
After the visit, she said the United Nations may consider further assistance where necessary.
Sani-Sidi, who led the management of the Agency in receiving the top official from the United Nations, requested the Under Secretary General to explore the UN system to “develop the capacities of NEMA and SEMAs in terms of acquisition of vital assets, technical training and capacity building.”
He said in the bid to streamline emergency response operations during disasters, NEMA had recently developed eight plans, which could be activated and applied according to specific areas of disasters.
The Agency, he continued, has on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria provided relief assistance to several African countries, established close cooperation with emergency management and humanitarian actors with other countries.
In addition to the visit to NEMA, the United Nations Under Secretary General Baroness Valerie Amos, also met with Vice President Namadi Sambo, who is the Chairman of NEMA’s Governing Council at the President Villa.
NEMA had within the week also received the visits of Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, Margareta Wahlstrom, and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for West Africa, Said Djinnit.
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