Bauchi Engages Stakeholders on Fire Disaster Management
By Umar Moh’d
The Bauchi State Government in its efforts to eliminate Fire Disaster across the state, has organised a meeting to bring all relevant stakeholders to a round table discussion.
The Stakeholders meeting organized by the State Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management is part of efforts to proffer solutions to fire and other disaster outbreaks across the state.
The stakeholders were drawn from both the federal and state fire services, the state line ministries, departments and agencies, security agencies, professional bodies, CSOs, Media, market and transport associations.
Speaking at the maiden meeting of the stakeholders, State Commissioner of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Hajiya Hajara Yakubu Wanka said that the State Government is committed to mitigating recurring fire disasters hence the need for identifying key stakeholders that could proffer solutions in that regard.
Wanka said that the main objective of the meeting was to explore innovative approaches to awareness creation on fire disasters, mitigation and response.
“Though we cannot completely stop fire disasters from happening, but we can help in reducing occurrences to the bearest minimum through massive awareness campaigns. Such awareness campaigns will assist in reorienting members of the public on basic precautionary measures and how they can save their lives if such disasters occur”.
The Commissioner implored the stakeholders to be open in their suggestions because according to her, “we are here to put heads together and come up with workable and realistic ways of managing fire disasters in Bauchi State”.
She assured the stakeholders that Governor Bala Mohammed is keen on seeing what the Stakeholders will offer as solutions to fire disasters, so that they would collectively provide a solution to the rampant cases of fire outbreaks in the state.
While appreciating the effort of the Humanitarian Ministry for convening the stakeholder engagement activity, the State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Sani Muhammad Dambam said that fire disasters most times comes with health concerns because of what victims go through during such disasters.
Dambam gave an insight into how the smoke in such disasters sometimes leads to loss of lives and advised victims to always lay low and crawl out to safety as according to him, “smoke tends to bellow up and so, when victims walk straight, there is the tendency of massive inhaling of smoke”.
He then pledged the commitment of his ministry in supporting the initiative by the Humanitarian Ministry aimed at reducing fire disasters in the State.
There were advises from the stakeholders that mostly focused on low awareness for the public, inadequate fire fighting trucks, accessibility of disaster areas, use of substandard electrical wirings, absence of simple emergency numbers and some other challenges.
At the end of the meeting, two subcommittees that include: resource mobilization and advocacy/awareness were formed with a mandate to develop a workable plan of action towards mitigating fire disasters in the State.
