By Mohammed Mohammed
The Director General of the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof. Mansur Matazu, on Monday expressed excitement at hosting his counterparts from Niger Republic and Gambia at the NiMet Headquarters in Abuja.
Addressing stakeholders and the media at the meeting, he said there is need for African countries especially the South-south nations to support themselves, adding that that is why Nigeria is
open in terms of capacity building and in any form of assistance to any nation.
“We have also been enjoying assistance from other nations, so we will be sharing our experience for this 7days technical study visit to Nigeria.” He said.
He added that there is an area for Niger seasonal climate prediction that Nigeria has been implementing for the last 15 years, explaining that the interaction will bring about lots of exchange and also sharing of experience with the team from Niger on seasonal climate prediction.
Matazu, acknowledged that Nigeria has robust numerical order prediction unit that is capable of providing some form of exchange of ideas and innovation to the team.
“And of course also, the issue of climate change both impact, vulnerability, adaptation and mitigation, just recently NiMet commissions, collated research from across all the eco climate zones of the country.” He clarified.
He said the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, will tomorrow (Tuesday) unveil in addition to the Seasonal Climate Prediction, document also a book launch published by NiMet on impact, vulnerability, adaptation and mitigation strategies in Nigeria.
The DG, said: “And of course also, we are open to learn from them based on what they are doing in their country. For the Gambia, I think he has made mention earlier which I sumed up earlier, adding that in the last two years NiMet, graduated by providing just mere forecast, to impact based forecast, going beyond what the weather will be to telling the public, the impact of the weather, the forecast will be and that has really improved.
“Our visibility and relevance as we are going to share experience and this also is coupuled with the advance that we have made in several other prediction tools that the Gambian team will also learn from us.
“We have been assisting Liberia and Sierra Leone on their daily services forecasting till date, and of course also for the later, we played significant role in the metamorphosing of the department of main service into an agency, stressing that Nigeria preparing them in areas of forecast, which provided increased visibility and relevance during the debate at the National Assembly.
“So for Gambian as we have seen, we have been collaborating with them, remember we have the regional training centre that was established in 1964, the goal is to train English speaking African Country, the five speaking African countries personnel and we have assisted technically, Malawi and Mozambique on ISO certification.
“We are doing a lot of this and some of the benefits is the place where we have this slogan, South-south cooperation, and the best benefits of this South-outh cooperation is your neighbor who you share common histo-cultural economy and eco climatic purpose together and Nigeria will be benefiting leadership role based on this intervention we have been providing and of course we have been learning on how to improve our services, from this country partnership.
“Above all also, we are assisting each other as brother assisting another neighbouring African country to fulfil the African Agenda 2063.”
In a remark, Mr. Katiellou Gaptia Lawan, of the Niger Meteorological Agency, admitted that NIMet is one of the successful meteorological agencies in Africa.
“we don’t have any doubt the reason we are here, but secondly Nigeria and Niger are two countries, if not because of this artificial boundaries, I may even say we are sesame country, so it is easier for me to come to Nigeria than go anywhere else.
“Another reason is that, in African we have to change the way of doing things. We have to reduce going to the North and increase south south cooperation, and also we have this initiative, because Nigeria is more advanced than us on the field, because you also have sufficient resources, we have limited resources but we know that we are trying our best to fulfil all the mission giving to us.
“Actually Niger is spending up the modernization of its metservice, and also at such we are also having a new numerical weather prediction which is on process with the Internal cooperation, we are also putting in place 8 regional metorical centres in Niger, so with the help of the government, we are able to have the equipment, so this bring me to the reason why I am here, is this cross cutting activities which is training.
In his remark, the Gambia Met Service representative, Mr. Lamin Mai Toure, said: “I have seen a lot since I arrived Nigeria and I am happy that since he took over (DG) he has ensured that whatever we discussed is working fine.
On our part, we we want to make sure that whatever sector is doing anything within the country, they must ask for climate information, that is what we want and since Nigeria has achieved that, we can therefore leverage on their experience to better our countries
