Mutfwang inaugurates local emergency council

Gov. Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau has inaugurated the Local Emergency Management Council (LEMC) to complement the work of the state and federal emergency management agencies.

The governor, who inaugurated the team on Thursday in Jos, said it had become necessary to prevent and manage emergencies at the grassroots level.

He urged personnel of the council to be more proactive in the delivery of their tasks, adding that the state would provide the necessary training.

“The most immediate disaster we may face this dry season is fire and that is why training is important because it’s not every fire that you quench with water, so training becomes important.

“We thank God that we don’t have the kind of natural disasters we hear in other nations, so we need to understand our environment and know what kind of disasters to anticipate and how we can prevent them.

“We will be working next year very strenuously to ensure that, at least, every local government headquarters has a firefighting capacity. We intend to reorganise the fire service department and make it more modern and robust.

“We need to make adequate preparations because as we get into the rainy seasons too, for those in southern Plateau particularly, we have to think of how to deal with flood and other things that will make life comfortable for our people,” he said.

The governor also warned against the possibility of emergencies from illegal mining.

He urged traditional rulers to cooperate with LEMC in providing early warning signals in the prevention of such disasters.

“One of the disasters that is waiting to happen, which we must arrest, is that of illegal mining. Two weeks ago we lost about 13 persons in Bassa.

“At the site of the Saint Ann’s school that collapsed sometime this ago, there’s already illegal mining activity going on there, which may even take over the whole of that land area.

“Even behind the fence in Government House here, they have been digging,

“So, this is where we plead with our traditional rulers. Information is key and then we can now be able to link up with the relevant authorities at the state and deal with this thing.

“We keep begging our people. I know the temptation to get quick cash to go and drink Burkutu is there.

“But just as we are trying to intervene in agriculture, we will also intervene in mining and make sure that our people are not short-changed,” he said.