WITH MET SERVICES, NIGERIA IS BECOMING MORE RELEVANT IN THE WORLD FOREX - NIMET DG

In this interview, Prof. Mansur Bako Matazu, Director-General/CEO of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), discusses the significance of the UN-sponsored Systematic Observation Financing Facility (SOFF), through which the agency offers meteorological services to nearby nations that are thought to be weaker nations, and how this has made Nigeria a major player globally in the meteorological and climate business. He also discusses other pertinent NiMets-related issues.

Some nations, including Liberia, Niger, and Somalia, among others, are served by NiMet's meteorological services. Do you receive compensation for these services？

The World Country Partnership, or WMO/VCP for short, is known in the International Civil Aviation Organization as “No Country Left Behind.” I don't believe you are helpful even if you have the skill and don't share your knowledge with your neighbors.

Regarding Nigeria, we have more than a thousand kilometers of borders, so if the drought and flooding in Niger are a problem, so are we. The first one is that they would all move.

So, in order to become relevant, credible, and big brother, you show support to the weaker community. Thanks to this, we accomplished a lot; we are best Met Service, and we are frequently consulted when there are problems, as I illustrated with the fertiliser example. Therefore, if you start small with anything, people will cherish and appreciate it.

Nigeria is the only black nation present at the VCP conference, even though there are eight other countries there, including the US, UK, Spain, and Netherlands. We created the VCP with WMO at no cost because we want to demonstrate to the rest of the world that we are not a nation of beggars in any way. We are not waiting even in the science of the weather and services.

The French government was quite pleased with what they saw at our last meeting; we will work with them on a program.

You gain result, and the rest of the world will start to take notice of you. They also hinted that Nigeria will assist these countries through the United Nations-funded Systematic Observation Financing Facility (SOFF). The UN Secretary General's claim that everyone must have access to early warning within the next five years forms the foundation of this SOFF. You were present when events in Libya occurred. 10,000 people are still unaccounted for, and over 6000 confirmed fatalities occurred in one incident. However, it has been demonstrated on a global scale that if people are given advance notice of any imminent weather hazard, they will undoubtedly reduce the number of casualties by more than 70%. However, if they learn about it one week beforehand.

The UN gathered people, financing resources, and all these development banks like the World Bank contributed money and it is through this money that they said, “Okay, bigger nations should help weaker ones.” Based on the way we predict our seasonal climate, almost six months in advance, is a very good lead time. They named Nigeria in that way, and we are now providing assistance to Niger, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, and Somalia.

What are some of the things you do in the health industry？

Productivity depends heavily on health, and in the tropics, the majority of ailments are caused by the climate. For instance, malaria is caused by the temperature, humidity, and accessibility of places for vector breeding that are either provided by vegetation or waterlogging operations. Therefore, we do an analysis using the NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index/Weather Climate), and during our seasonal climate prediction, we can predict the occurrence of malaria, including the mosquito's capacity to bite, since the mosquito's capacity to breathe and even to bite depends on the weather. Thus, we now have an ongoing collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health's Public Health Department as well as the Centers for Disease Control.

How far along are you with implementing the Low-Level Wind Shear Alert System at all airports across the country？

The LLWAS (Low Level Wind Shear Alert System) initiative actually began following the Sosoliso crash, and it is a dynamic and risky phenomenon that can happen in a matter of seconds before dissipating. Initially, we were unable to track this as a government agency or inside the industry, but following that occurrence, it became possible for us, and we developed a plan for this LLWAS, which we have now implemented in 18 airports. Here's the problem: sometimes vandalism starts happening even before a project is finished.

From the base in Port Harcourt, they cut the complete mast. We witnessed vandalism even inside the airport's perimeter in Lagos, but we were able to weather the storm. First, despite its exorbitant cost, we are creating Terminal Doppler Radar, an alternative technique. Additionally, we are creating a method we call the “north-central strategy” that will allow us to study cloud physics across any area of the country. If you are familiar with cloud physics, you can tell whether a particular cloud has the potential to produce microbursts. A collection of cloud microbursts may produce wind shear. We therefore attack the wind shear from a variety of angles, exactly like they do in the US.