Rivers
NEMA Urges Intensive Training For Disaster Management
The South-South zone of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on Wednesday advocated “train the trainers strategy” to ensure effective sensitisation of people on disaster management. The Zonal Co-ordinator, Mr Umesi Emenike, said in Port Harcourt that the strategy would make everybody a teacher for adequate sensitisation.
Emenike said that the agency organised a three-day training workshop to train the trainers and to strengthen community network on emergency management in the south-south region.
He said the workshop which aims to mitigate and even reduce disasters is informed by the experiences we had in the last flooding incidents. According to Emenike, “what we have done is to invite those that we want to train that will now retrain people at the community level on community resilience and emergency response.We’re trying to strengthen our community network, so that when there are emergencies in the community, as first responder, they would have been well armed to know what to do and who to reach out to when such incidents occurred.”
“Naturally, in emergency management, we have almost everybody as stakeholders, but, there are institutional stakeholders we are trying to train; people like the road safety, red cross, the civil defence, NGO’s, fire service and the rest of them.
We’re emphasising a” teach back strategy,” so that at the end of day, when they go back to train those who are not here, whatever benefit that they are going to gain from this training will categorise down to those at the grassroots,’’ he added.
The co-ordinator called for cooperation of all stakeholders, saying that the vulnerability of the zone to disasters required everybody’s support.
The Rivers state Chief Judge, Justice SIMONE CHIBUZOR-AMADI has given an indication to sanction any lawyer who fail to comply with directive of a judge in the state to transferred a case to Rivers State Multi Door Courthouse for Alternatives Dispute Resolution.
Justice AMADI stated this during a brief ceremony held at the chief judge auditorium in port Harcourt Friday held to hand over certificates of operation to two private ADR chambers on Precarious Dispute Resolution Services and Harmony Arbitration and mediation center .
He urged the two private ADR centres to be diligent in the discharge of their duties and warned against compromising the standard of Alternative Dispute Resolution, ADR but should observed the regulations set out in collaboration regulation by the state Multi Door Court House.
Earlier in a address, the Director of the State Multi Door Courthouse, VICTOR NWEKE esq, highlighted some of the achievements of the Multi Door Courthouse especially in decongestion of court rooms.
NWEKE while disclosing how the department certified the two private ADR centres called for serious punitive measures be taken against any lawyer who fail to comply with a case referred to Multi Door Court House by a judge or magistrates in the state.
In her acceptance speech on behalf of the two certified private ADR centres, ALICE NIMI commended the State Judiciary and Multi Door Courthouse for the approval and assured that all the rules and regulations spelt out will be followed.
In a related development; the Rivers State Judiciary has assured its readiness to collaborate with Nigerian Securityding Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC in using Alternative Dispute Resolution to resolve some of the issues in their office.
The state Chief Judge , Justice SIMONE CHIBUZOR-AMADI made the promise when he received in audience the Zonal Commander of NSCDC, Assistant Commandant General, AYINLA TALYE OLOWO and his team who paid him a courtesy visit in his office , Friday where issuees ADR utilization took centre stage.
He used the opportunity to brief his visitors on the hurdles judges faces daily in the court room and the need for the decongestion of the court room , stressing that one judge handle more than three hundred cases but that if lawyers and litigants adopt ADR practice court rooms can be releive of the daily congestions.
The state Chief Judge however urged NSCDC to ensure a wider sensitization of the members of the public on the practice of ADR for a better awareness and knowledge.
Earlier in his speech, the Zonal Commander of NSCDC, Assistant Commandant General, AYINLA TALYE-OLOWO said the visit was to seek collaboration on the use of ADR in resolving some issues which he insisted would help decongest the courtrooms.
Our correspondent reports officials of the Rivers State Multi Door Courthouse led by the Director, VICTOR NWEKE led the team of NSCDC on a technical session where information on how to the fully in cooperated into the Multi Door Courthouse and operation of ADR will be emphasized.
Akujobi Amadi