Policy Failures and the Challenges of Emergency Response and Disaster Management in Nigeria: Advocating a Multi-Stakeholders’ Approach

Abstract

Emergency situations are commonplace occurrences in every society, including Nigeria. Despite various policies, institutions and agencies of government saddled with responding to different types of emergencies and management of disaster situations, the disaster management climate in Nigeria is still lacking in the areas of synergy, coordination, timeliness and expertise needed to effectively coordinate and manage life threatening natural or manmade disaster. Given the above, this article examines the obstacles to emergency response and catastrophe management in Nigeria and makes the case for a multi-stakeholder strategy. Secondary sources were analysed for content to create data for this article. The theory of political systems developed by David Easton served as the basis for this research. The conclusion from the analysis was that the ad hoc nature of emergency responses has not only proven to be ineffective, it is also costly in terms of losses of lives and properties. There is therefore an urgent need to rethink our emergency response and disaster management framework for better efficiency and effectiveness. Flowing from the conclusion reached, it was recommended, among others that there should be a policy framework that would assign statutory roles to traditional institutions in the coordination of disaster recovery efforts and management of post disaster situations in their domains. This will help to reduce conflict of interest between government agencies and indigenous communities in the face of emergency situations and disaster. It was also recommended that the task of disaster recovery and management should not be left to selected institutions of government alone. Intersectoral collaboration is critical. The National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria (NICON) should be encouraged to set up and manage a special fund for disaster recovery and post disaster management.