By Frank Momoh
The Director-General (DG) of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, (NiMet) Prof. Mansur Bako Matazu, has advocated that woman play more participatory role in weather dissemination value-chain.
The General Manager, Public Affairs of the agency, Mr. Muntari Ibrahim, in a statement made available to the Media over the weekend, said the Director-General who was represented by the Director, Weather Forecasting Services of NiMet, Dr. Clinton Ezekwe, stressed the importance of weather dissemination during a courtesy visit of the National Youth for Women Empowerment and Education in Nigeria.
According to him, the organisation needs to drive the process of ensuring that the weather alerts issued by NiMet trickles down to the women folk who are most vulnerable to weather-induced disasters since most of them in the rural areas are farmers.
By arming the women with weather information, you would reduce cases of crop losses from members of this particular constituency, he said.
With the Nigerian women population amounting to over 59.9 percent, the DG also believes that there is need to partner with women to disseminate NiMet weather forecast and early warning massages, adding that as the saying goes, “if you educate a woman, you are educating an entire nation”.
In the same vain, the National Coordinator of the National Youth for Women Empowerment and Education in Nigeria, Mrs. Lami Kayode stated that women through out history have played pivotal roles in the development of society and Nigeria is not an exception. “The National Youth for Women Empowerment and Education in Nigeria is devoid of religion, ethnicity and tribe. Our organisation’s main objective is to see the emancipation and entrenchment of women’s rights and values in Nigeria and the world”, she concluded.
The highlight of the event was the presentation of Award of Excellence to a staff of the agency, Mr. Suleiman Gurin, a Chief Meteorologist, an expert in Aeronautical Meteorology, a Veteran Weather Forecaster and Officer in charge of Public Weather Media at the Central Forecast Office in NiMet who has contributed immensely to the Meteorological Community.
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency remains open to purpose-driven partnerships geared towards saving not just the women but Nigerians generally, from suffering crop losses, flooding and wastage due to weather vagaries.
