34 Universities to Benefit from NiMet First Phase Meteorological Infrastructure

By Kasim Sumaina in Abuja

The Director General/Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof. Sani Abubakar Mashi has disclosed that thirty-four (34) universities  across the country were to benefit from its first phase meteorological infrastructure.

He noted that it was in furtherance of its target to increase the network of meteorological stations across the country and boost its data collection. 

This was contained in a statement by the General Manager/Public Relations Unit, NiMet, Muntari Ibrahim yesterday in Abuja. 

Prof. Mashi who paid a courtesy visit to the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, NUC, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, in Abuja, hinted that the agency had embarked on an aggressive programme to massively expand the network of meteorological stations in the country to about 1000 by December 2017. 

According to him, “one of the strategies NiMet would employ to achieve this is to partner with Nigerian universities and part of the things we said we would do is to see how we can extend our services to the Nigerian universities.”

He revealed that NiMet carried out an independent assessment of the universities and looked at the existing meteorological stations the universities maintained. Adding that one of the things that is missing is the linkage between the universities and the agency. 

“NiMet has the expertise and knows what should be in place, while the universities have the capacity to teach, but may not have the technical competence to know the best equipment for the best results.

“We feel that what we need to do, we need to come up with a way to help the universities get their infrastructure upgraded,” he said.

Prof. Mashi, who described the partnership with the universities as a win-win situation, explained that once the meteorological stations are upgraded, they would start generating data, thus expanding the agency’s network of stations, because the universities’ infrastructure has been upgraded.

In his response, the Executive Secretary of NUC, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed congratulated the Director-General and assured him that the commission would fully support this initiative and talk to the Vice Chancellors about it.

According to him, “It is a very important thing you are doing and I want to assure you of our full support and full cooperation, and I hope by next year you would cover the entire universities in the country and then polytechnics and colleges of education”