Kwara Govt. moves to strengthen state fire service – AbdulRasaq

Kwara Government has set machinery in motion to re-position and strengthen the state’s Fire Service for effective service delivery.

Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara said this on Thursday at the closing ceremony of the 10th National Council on Fire held at the Banquet Hall, opposite Government House, Ilorin.

AbdulRazaq, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Dr Mamman Jibril announced that the government had rehabilitated the Unity Fire Station, Ilorin, promised to address challenges of the state fire service one after the other.

According to him, fire service delivery is a vital component of internal security and the issue of safety of lives and property occupies a major place in the programmes of the current administration.

AbdulRazaq called on citizens to prevent fire disasters in view of its ugly consequences.

In his remarks, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Interior, Barrister Georgina Ehuriah, called on government at all levels to provide the necessary resources that would make the fire services in various domains better equipped to respond to critical service issues when demands were made.

She said the theme for this year’s conference, “Technology: An imperative for effective service delivery in the fire sector” was indeed very apt considering the vital role technology currently played in contemporary world.

Ehuriah explained that the choice of this theme, therefore, testified to efforts being made by the Federal Government to re-position the fire sector for more impact service delivery in the country.

The Controller General, Federal Fire Service (FFS), Alhaji Ibrahim Liman, said failure to comply with environmental laws, regulations and adherence to weather warnings still hampered effective response to flood disaster.

Liman explained that flood disasters had exposed the need for more collaboration among NEMA, NiMet and NIHISA to further provide yearly flood outlooks/prediction and early warnings.

Participants at the meeting agreed on the need to empower fire service to create awareness with state development units to enforce building code across Nigeria.