NAN-AE-3
Forecast
By Sumaila Ogbaje
Abuja, June 6, 2017 (NAN) The Director General, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof. Sani Mashi, says the agency is ready to increase the density of its weather stations through collaboration with tertiary institutions in the country.
Mashi disclosed this at the opening of sensitisation workshop for State Meteorological Inspector (SMIs) and Chief Meteorological Technologists (CMTs) on Tuesday in Abuja.
He said NiMet, with only 54 observatory stations, was unable to cover the entire geography of Nigeria, considering its huge land mass and large population.
He added that the agency needed not less than 9,000 weather stations, saying that the huge gap could only be covered through effective collaboration with institutions that had such facilities.
According to him, there are many universities, colleges of education, polytechnics and other institutions that have weather stations that NiMet can absorb into its network of stations.
He explained that “one important challenge I met when I took over was the issue of the density of our network.
“As you all know, Nigeria is a massive country because the land mass of Nigeria is approximately 940,000 square kilometres.
“If we should go by the recommendation of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), we should have at least one observatory in a distance between 100 to 300 square kilometres.
“It means that technically, we should have nothing less than 9,000 stations; I am not happy to know that the density of our stations is much lower than expected.
“I have decided that within the time I am going to spend here, I will ensure that we utilise all opportunities we have to increase the density of our stations.
“While we work toward establishing new ones, we will form a synergy with some private and public institutions network.
“We will work toward entering into partnership and memorandum of understanding with them so that we look at what they have to improve the reliability of facilities that are there.
“This is to ensure that those stations are automatically absorbed into the network of our stations.’’
The NiMet boss said priority would be given to staff training and retraining to enable the agency to met its mandate of providing accurate weather information to the public.
He said NiMet had an existing partnership agreement with Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Federal University of Technology, Akure, as well as UK MET Office for capacity building of staff.
According to him, the agency has a technical service agreement with UK Met to provide technical support in its marine forecast and provision of facilities.
“Like we all know, we are an agency that has the responsibility of generating information and making available for use such information to address developmental challenges.”
Earlier, Mr Dele Ojediran, the Cordinator, SMls and CMTs Forum, urged NiMet
to boost manpower needs in the Synoptic, Upper Air, Agromet, Hydromet and Marine units of the agency.
Ojediran also called for recruitment and training of more personnel in those areas, adding that their services were critical for weather forecasting, research and aviation operations.
He called for prompt implementation of the licencing of weather observers and forecasters as stipulated by World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
“We earnestly solicit your good office to remove the GL14 ceiling pegged on Meteorological Weather Observers to enhance the cadre’s progression.
“On our part, we pledge our continuous support to you and the management team toward achieving NiMET vision and mission and in accordance to the change agenda of the Presidency,’’ he said. (NAN)
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Edited by Morayo Omolade/Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu