by Alexander O. Onukwue
Mustapha Maihaja, the DG of NEMA was on NTA this morning to discuss the agency’s response to the Benue floods.
For many who may not have caught the show on live TV, seeing clips of his contributions posted via the NEMA twitter account would have felt like a good avenue to hear his views. But that is only if you can sift through the other conversation in the background. Voices of a woman and other young females nearly obstruct totally whatever could be heard of Mr Maihaja’s words on NTA.
DG #nemanigeria making his contribution on the current flooding across the country pic.twitter.com/xEj3DQGJlu
— NEMA Nigeria (@nemanigeria) September 4, 2017
NEMA has taken some hits for their response to the Benue floods so far. First, it was disturbing to many that the President had to issue directives to the agency before it could get itself to intervene in Benue State, even as it appears the DG and the agency was reluctant to do mobilize to Benue.
The agency reports that there seven trucks of relief material were sent down to the Benue but there was an observation by a twitter user that the trucks had in fact not arrived at the time the agency had said it did. Then, there were those who wanted to make contributions in terms of aid materials but were told to come back after the public holidays were over.
Add to these the poorly recorded video of the DG on NTA posted on an official account on social media and it would appear the pattern of unprofessionalism is more than a mere occurrence of coincidence.
Being an agency that works within the margins of, in many cases, life and death, it should be expected that they hold high standards in the performance of their duties and in their communication of their performance too.
The video, unclear due to the chatter in the background, appears to draw attention to the seemingly distracted DG of the agency who has had a few political commotions over the last two months following his suspension by the APC of Yobe State.
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