Creation of Climate Agency Waste of Resources, Says NiMet DG

The Director General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof. Sani Abubakar Mashi, has faulted calls for the creation of a separate and parallel Climate Change Agency (CCA), saying the establishment of such body is a waste of resources and will amount to a duplication of functions already being carried out by an existing agency, NiMet. 

Prof. Mashi said NiMet was established by an Act of Parliament in 2003 to provide weather services in marine, environmental and bio-meteorology for climatic and human health activities, stressing that so far, all stakeholders are unanimous in their agreement that it has been carrying out this role both effectively and efficiently; therefore, there should be no reason for the creation of a new body with similar functions.

Mashi made this known while fielding questions from journalists in an interview in Lagos Tuesday and remarked that at a time when there is widespread clamour for limited  government and scaling down of bureaucracy, creating another body with essentially the same roles as NiMet would not only be counter-productive but also a waste of scarce resources during the period of an economic recession. 

“Since its inception in 2003, NiMet has played and continues to play crucial, critical and strategic roles in fulfillment of its mandate, including the issue of climate change hence the major authoritative voice on climate issues in Nigeria as recognised by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), a technical and specialised agency of the United Nations (UN).

“Furthermore, NiMet is the repository of the national archives of climate data in Nigeria. The climate data bank has data spanning over a century from over 60 synoptic stations spread across the nation. There are no meaningful climate studies or policy developments that can be conducted without credible climate data. This climate data can only be found in NiMet. NiMet also has the largest concentration of climatologists in the country and these resources are always used to produce the scientific basis for climate change in Nigeria,” Mashi said.

Details later…