L:R: DG NSIB, Engr. Akin Olateru and Permanent Secretary of LASEMA,Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu at the signing of the MoU in Lagos.
To ensure seamless partnership, the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) to further foster their performance.
The MoU is also to further enhance safety and preservation of critical evidence at crash sites in case of serious incidents and accidents in all modes of transportation.
This is just as NSIB has volunteered to train the over 200 staff of LASEMA in accident management.
Speaking at the MoU signing ceremony in Lagos at the weekend, Director-General, NSIB, Akin Olateru said, it was important for agencies and organisations to partner in the interest of the country.
Olateru explained that NSIB was not the first responder in case of an accident, but said it was necessary for the agency to partner with first responders like LASEMA, police, the military and other critical organisations.
“We are not the first responder in case of an accident; we are investigators. The first responders need to know their roles and we need to know ours, too”.
He explained that the partnership with LASEMA would further aid accuracy of accident investigation and prevent recurrence of such.
“We had an initial meeting in March this year, which gave birth to this MoU that we are signing today. We have been pursuing some orgnisations in the last six years and nothing positive has come out of it. Whatever MoU we sign with organisations, it’s for the interest of the nation”.
Olateru lamented that the bureau had in the past six years made attempts to partner with some government agencies, but failed to achieve this purpose and lauded the management of LASEMA for agreeing to the MoU within five months it was first proposed.
“We will be deceiving ourselves when we say there will not be disasters. There will be disasters, but we need to partner for it and we need to reduce the impact of the disasters.”
Olateru also said that the technical staff of LASEMA would be trained by the Southern California Safety Institute of the United States of America (USA).
There are over 2000 staff in LASEMA, but Olateru said the staff would be trained in batches. The first batch would be trained before the end of this month.
“We are happy to train the staff of agencies. This is necessary for them to know what we do and how we go about them. Evidence needs to be preserved at crash sites. Partnering with an agency like LASEMA is good for our country. Lagos State is the size of four to five in Europe”.
Earlier, Permanent Secretary of LASEMA,Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, said the MoU was to further assure Lagosians that the agency would always respond swiftly to any emergency management.
He explained that the State Government in recent years, had expended billions of naira to equip the agency with the procurement of state-of-the-art ambulance vehicles and engagement and training of qualified personnel to manage disasters in the state.
“We also say that disaster management is the responsibility of everyone. We are signing this MoU with NSIB to take care of the airspace in case of an emergency or disaster.
“When the unfortunate aircraft accident happened earlier in the week, we worked together with the officials of NSIB at the crash site and our effort ensured that there was no mortality in the accident.”
