THE Federal Capital Territory Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has reduced its emergency response time to three minutes.
FEMA said the response time in the nation’s capital was cut from five to three minutes to lessen deaths and save lives and property.
Its Director of Forecasting, Response, and Mitigation at FEMA, Florence Wenegiem, stated this on Tuesday, October 10, in Abuja during a campaign to raise awareness of the 2023 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction.
The sensitisation was conducted at the Bwari Area Council Secretariat in Abuja and the Palace of Esu Sa-Bwaya of Bwari (the Chief of Bwari), Ibrahim Yaro.
The sensitisation campaign with the theme “Fighting Inequality for a Resilient Future for All” began on October 4 across the six Area Councils of the FCT.
Wenegieme said that after community structures were trained to act as first responders to emergencies in their communities, the three-minute reaction time became realistic.
The director specified the community structures, including the local divers, emergency vanguards, disaster marshals, town criers, volunteers, and other systems like youth and women groups.
“Community members are usually the first respondents to an emergency because it happens within their community. They have been adequately trained to know exactly what to do during emergencies and rescue operations before FEMA officials arrive,” she stated.
She claimed that through drills and simulations, the community structures had received sufficient training in emergency response, giving them the required information and abilities.
The director said that FEMA had also purchased power cycles for the agency personnel to get through the gridlock in Abuja and arrive at the disaster situation in three minutes.
“This quick response will ensure that more lives and properties are saved,” she noted.
She said it was crucial to sensitise community members to ensure that no one was left behind during emergencies.
She emphasised the importance of paying attention to vulnerable populations such as children, expectant mothers, people who are blind, the elderly, and persons residing in disaster-prone areas.
In response, the Esu of Bwari, Yaro, pledged to work with FEMA to spread awareness of disaster risk reduction among all households in the Bwari area council.
Earlier, the council chairman, John Bagaya, announced that the council had established its local emergency management committee to handle situations on a neighbourhood level.
The ICIR reported that a video went viral on Wednesday, September 27, showing a lady, later identified as Greatness Olorunfemi, by the roadside along the Maitama-Kubwa expressway after being pushed out of a vehicle by a suspected criminal gang disguised as commercial drivers.
“This lady was just pushed down from a vehicle between Maitama-Kubwa express, the road going towards Wuse, Berger. She was pushed by all this one chance. Please, let’s be careful, she was pushed down from a one-chance vehicle,” an unidentified eyewitness narrated in the video.
According to an audio tape from the eye witness that also went viral, passersby took Olorunfemi to the Maitama District Hospital in Abuja for treatment, but she was denied treatment by the hospital staff, who demanded a police report before attending to her.
Greatness later died from the incident.
A reporter with the ICIR
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