The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has emphasised the need for continued support from critical stakeholders, assuring of collaboration with the media for active disaster mitigation and management.

The North West Zonal Coordinator of the agency, Alhaji Musa Ilalah, gave this assurance Thursday in Kaduna during a courtesy call on him by the officials of Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kaduna Council led by the Chairman, Comrade Garba Muhammad.

Ilalah said no organisation worth its name can operate and succeed in a vacuum without utilising the media, hence NEMA would always partner the media to ensure its aims and objectives are achieved seamlessly.

According to him, promoting disaster management and mitigation is a task that requires all critical stakeholders and the media is a veritable stakeholder. He asserted that NEMA North West has enjoyed a tremendous partnership with the media in Kaduna. He said the agency’s stakeholder network is large such that even a peasant farmer in a remote village can be utilised to achieve the agency’s objectives, and as such he can be utilised.

He said: “The media in Kaduna has always aided NEMA with useful advice and the heeding of the advice by the agency has gone a long way in making success of saving lives and property," he stressed.

Ilalah said one of the greatest challenges of the agency is funding, but that they are working within available means to make best use of the limited resources.

“Our goal is to ensure free disaster environment through proactive measures in collaboration with other agencies through mass sensitisation and street campaigns to avert and mitigate disaster. As a team we can make better impact and achieve more result.”

In his remarks, Comrade Garba Muhammad stressed the importance of taking the media along in the agency’s activities. He applauded the prompt response of the agency to calls and cry for assistance, especially the recent visit to internally displaced persons (IDPs) Camps within Kaduna to evaluate their conditions and needs.

Muhammad said one of the challenges of the council is the issue of quacks, but since assuming the leadership of the council, they are doing the best they can to ensure practicing journalists in Kaduna have the minimum qualification, hence the repositioning of International Institute of Journalism (IIJ).

He also revealed that the council is poised to empower its members through skills acquisition which necessitated partnership with Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to train them on various skills and enterprises.

The Chairman also assured the agency of the continuous support of the council while advising the management to utilise the effectiveness of new media in sensitisation.