NiMet Pledges support for Liberian Meteorological Service
Oru Leonard
The Director General/CEO of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NiMet, Prof. Abubakar Sani Mashi, has assured that the Federal Government through his agency is ready to assist the Liberian Meteorological Services in strengthening its capacity to deliver efficient services.
Abubakar Mashi disclosed this while addressing representatives of the Liberian students from the World Meteorological Organisation Regional Training Centre, Oshodi, who were on courtesy visit to his office in Abuja.
Prof. Mashi explained that within the West African context, Nigeria (NiMet) is a big brother to Liberia and is willing to give all the necessary support and assistance that Liberia needs. He affirmed that Nigeria and Liberia share a cordial relationship in terms of provision of weather services adding that presently NiMet produces daily weather services to Sierra – Leone and Liberia and some other sister nations within the West African region.
He explained that, it’s at the instance of the WMO’s request for West African countries to support one another, especially in weather related areas, that NiMet has given assurance and commitment to train and retrain the students on aspects of meteorology.
He envisioned that by the end of the training they will be in a better position to assist their country in generating weather information and services and expressed optimism that Liberia will be strong enough to help others just the way they had been assisted.
In his response, the leader of the students, Lemuel Kleeme, Deputy Director for Public Affairs, Ministry of Transport Republic of Liberia, expressed appreciation for the partnership and support they enjoyed from NiMet especially in meteorology and promised they would utilize all that will be learnt to the fullest to get to par with the rest of the world.
Speaking earlier, Director, Research and Training Prof .Oniyonuoye. Ojugo, explained that part of the students training was to be in the headquarters for three weeks on practical aspects of Public Weather Presentation.
The 28 students are the second set to embark on the training which will cover Agrometeorology, Data Processing, Forecasting as well as Public Weather Presentation. The training varies from one month to one year depending on the curriculum. The first batch of students from Liberia came in 2016.
