Senate flays FG’s slow response to natural disasters

THE Senate, on Thursday, condemned the poor emergency response by the FederalGovernment to natural disasters in the country.The motion, moved by moved by Senator Ganiyu Solomon and six other senators, including Oluremi Tinubu,Gbenga Ashafa, Basheer Mohammed, Victor Lar, Joshua Dariye and Hope Uzodinma, was on the recent flood disaster which ravaged Lagos, destroyed properties worth billions of naira and wasted many lives.
Seconding the motion, Senator George Sekibo said “natural disasters of this nature are normally predicted and when this happens, people try to do something like evacuating the residents from the disaster prone areas.”
The Senate President, Mr David Mark, while contributing to the debate, called on the Federal Government to always get prepared fornatural disasters, so that the effect would be minimal whenever they occurred.
“Our reaction to natural disasters is very slow,” he said, adding that relevant government agencies should be put in a state of readiness at all times.”
The Senate president advocated the declaration of emergencies in area where natural disastersoccurred, adding that the emergency in this case did not mean the removal of the governoror disruption of the state administrative machineries.(NIGERIAN TRIBUNE)