Food Security: 2019 NiMet
Predictions and Socio-economic Implications in Nigeria II
Since the beginning of 2017 when the new
helmsman of NiMet, Prof Sani Mashi arrived and promised to make the agency provide excellent metrological services to the nation
and the rest of the world, he has been striving hard to fulfil his promise. He
was particularly concerned with the airliners as they enter Nigeria’s
territorial airspace, they must get the best type of information that any
meteorological agency can give anywhere in the world. He craved to provide best
service worthy of emulation by other countries “especially those in the
developing world – whether African, American or Asian – wants to develop their
own meteorological agency, they will look at NiMet as their role model.” As he
assiduously stride on the glorious path of history, the agency has continued to
tread excellently providing metrological services comparable to similar
agencies all over the world.
NiMet is today attracting global accolades from within
and without. In discharging these services, the agency is purely guided by her
vision, which states “To Make World Standard Weather Predictions and Services
for Sustainable National Socio-Economic Development and Safety of Life and
Property”. The agency’s mission stating “To observe Nigerian Weather and
Climate and provide Meteorological, Hydrological and Oceanographic Services in
support of National Needs and International Obligations” reinforces her lofty
vision.
NiMet services are applied in diverse
issues on several human endeavors such as environmental sustainability, safety
in air operation, land and marine transportation and increase in agricultural
productivity tourism, health,
defense, education, sports and construction. Other areas are Monitoring,
management and mitigation of natural disasters. It is based on this premise
that the 2019 NiMet predictions attracted wide range of stakeholders who will
use the information to efficiently plan their various operations. What are the NiMet 2019 predictions? How
reliable are these predictions? What are the socio-economic implications of
these predictions?
The major services of NiMet are weather
(temperature, rainfall events etc) forecasts and their periodic predictions.
These services become more critical as the world is utterly facing global
warming as a result of continuous greenhouse gas emission. The most devastating
effect of global warming is evidenced on agricultural productivity as agriculture
is directly and closely correlated with weather and climate conditions. Extreme weather conditions have direct effects
on livelihood, water security, health, land use and related issues to food
security, environmental degradation and ecosystem collapse. These invariably
affect the overall economic prosperity of the nation. In fact, extreme weather event is seen as a
single and most dominant challenge to the survival of humanity. The weather and
climate information being produced by NiMet is therefore critical for combating
climate change through adaptation and mitigation strategies. Thus, reliable and
timely generation of weather information is an important tool use for the
development of early warning system. The information enables good planning of
agricultural activities with high reliability and guarantee for success. This
was the reason that attracted high attendants to the NiMet public presentation
of 2019 seasonal rainfall prediction (SRP) at NAF conference centre, Abuja on
24th January 2019.
The caliber of participants in the 2019 SRP
was drawn from different sectors of the economy: agriculture, education,
transportation, military, tourism, and health from both public and private
quarters. They included chief executive officers and top management staff of
the various agencies in the aforementioned sectors as well as farmers and
secondary schools students, christened “the young meteorologists”. The Minister
of State (Aviation), Senator Hadi Sirika chaired the occasion and unveiled the
2019 SRP as well as released the 2018 climate review. It was a mammoth gathering with high
expectation from the NiMet valuable services. In addition to the high value
allotted to the Services, there was also transparent confidence in NiMet
prediction that made the gargantuan crowd to witness the annual event. In this
regard, some representatives of states like Katsina, Kebbi, Jigawa and Oyo
confessed of using the 2018 SRP to increase their agricultural productivity in
the 2018 rainy season by more than 30%.
Senator Hadi Sirika emphasized the
importance of the prediction for the development of early warning system and
ostensibly quoted one of the World Bank’s reports, “every US Dollar invested in
the development of early warning system saves an average of seven US Dollars in
the disaster management”. This means that the cost of the colossal damages
caused by disaster as a result of inability to develop and utilize early
warning system will be seven times higher than cost of disaster management. The
minister added, “If the NiMet services are appropriately and timely used, the
services of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will be greatly reduced
and save unquantifiable lives and properties”. What made stakeholders have
confidence in NiMet predictions?
Reviewing the 2018 NiMet predictions
clearly indicated reasons for the stakeholders’ confidence in NiMet
services. In the 2018 seasonal rainfall
prediction, NiMet focused on the rainfall onset, length of rainy season, end of
growing season and annual rainfall. The country was predicted to experience
normal to earlier than normal onset of rainfall with examples of towns like
Sokoto, Bauchi, Kaduna, Lafia, Makurdi, Ado-Ekiti, Akure, Calabar, Eket to
experience early onset. In contrast, towns like Yelwa, Bida, Abuja, Abeokuta,
Lagos and Umuahia were predicted to experience late onset. Several other towns
across the nation were predicted to either receive early, normal or late onsets
of rainfall in 2018. NiMet excellently achieved an average of 91% precision in
its prediction of 2018 rainfall onset of rainfall across the country.
On the rainfall cessation dates for the
2018 rainy season, most towns in the northwest like Katsina, Sokoto and areas
surrounding the towns were predicted to experience early cessation of rainfall
around 28th September 2018. Southern coastal cities were predicted
to receive their last rain of the year in December 2018. However, cessation of
the growing season for majority of the towns in Nigeria was predicted to be
normal with exception of Jos, Ubi, Uyo and Lagos that experienced early
cession. NiMet achieved 91% and 89% precision in the predictions of rainfall
and growing seasons cessation, respectively. On the annual rainfall amount for
all the towns that received predictions, NiMet achieved an average of 65%
precision making the overall achievement of 2018 SRP to be 84%. Similar
evaluation for the same year 2018, day and night temperature was also reviewed.
However, the performance of NiMet in temperature forecasts was rather low
compared to the rainfall forecasts. The average predictions for the day and
night temperature from January to April was merely 48% precision. The under
prediction of temperatures in most towns was attributed to global climate
change. Despite this low performance of NiMet in temperature predictions,
several stakeholders scored NiMet performance outstandingly high and thus,
reinforced their confidence. NiMet has to work hard to improve her predictions
to achieve 100% precision.
The 2019 NiMet predictions covered rainfall
onset, cession, amount and length of growing season. The predictions also
covered temperature, dry spell, incidences of malaria, and cerebrospinal
meningitis in the selected towns across the nation. On rainfall onset, the
country is predicted to experience late onset in most parts of the country. The
earliest onset is predicted to be around 7th March in the coastal
and south-south towns. This onset will progressively change northwards to cover
the nation with towns at extreme north like Miduguri, Katsina, Potiskum and
Nguru expected to have their rainfall onset on 16th June. On the cession of rainfall, northwestern
towns will experience rainfall cession around 29th September with
several towns in the north having their cessions in October. Central and
southern states are expected to receive their last rain of the year between
late October and Mid November. In 2019, the length of growing season in
selected towns covering the nation ranges from 109 to 291 days. Consequently, shorter
growing season is predicted for most parts of the country such as Sokoto,
Gusau, Zaria, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Gombe, Bauchi, Lokoja, Enugu and Ikom.
Normal growing season is predicted for Shaki, Ado-Ekiti, Ibadan, Ondo, Akure,
Benin, Port-Harcourt, Calabar, Owerri, Uyo, Umuahia and areas surrounding such
places. What are the implications for this prediction? What is the mitigation
strategy for the farmers in the affected areas? (To be concluded next week)
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