It is my honour and great pleasure to address you today, our dear esteem stakeholders as we work together to deliver this great national document, the 2022 Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP) on time for the sustainable socio-economic benefits of our dear nation.
2. Let me first appreciate you for accepting our invitations at a very short notice and for gracing this workshop out of your many busy schedules. We sincerely value your support over the years and do hope for more in this year and beyond.
3. As you may be aware, our mandate as an Agency of Government is to generate, analyse and develop all meteorological information for the purpose of advising decision and policy makers in all tiers of Government and across all sectors of the economy with accurate and reliable weather and climate information, especially in the issuance of early warning advisories that will assist in taking informed decisions to avert and prepare against risks associated with weather extremes and climate change phenomena.
4. With a vision to be a World Class provider of Weather and Climate services for safety and sustainable national socio-economic development; we provide services across multiple sectors of the Nigerian economy including Agriculture, Aviation, Telecommunications, Power & Energy, Building and Construction, Oil & Gas, Disaster Risk Reduction & Management, Education, Defense, Marine & Maritime, Health, Finance & Insurance, among others. The services provided by NiMet are essential in ensuring weather and climate hazards do not threaten the sustainable development of Nigeria but become opportunities to further expand socio-economic benefits through resilience, mitigation and adaptation actions.
5. Fulfilling this mission and vision require adequate and quality data. In NiMet’s over 130 years of existence, we have improved capacity for meteorological observation, analysis and reporting through ground-based instruments, upper air instruments, satellite-based observations, modelling, forecasting and now-casting activities. The Agency has generated robust database of climate information across every part of the country. Meteorological stations (conventional and automatic) are situated in every State of the Federation including the Federal Capital Territory. We have intensified efforts at creating additional data sources by investing in over 120 Tertiary and Secondary Educational Institutions through the setting up of meteorological stations. The Agency is currently at the point of deploying additional over 30 Automatic Weather Observing Stations to strategic locations across Nigeria.
6. The changes in our climate have become more obvious in recent times following the observed anomalies in occurrence of extreme weather and climate events which have become more frequent and result into hazards such as flooding, droughts, heat waves, increasing temperatures, sea level rise, changes in onset and cessation dates, frequent dry spells etc. which have threatened livelihoods, human existence, food and nutrition security, infrastructures and sustainable development across the globe. Memories of the flood of 2012, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 in Nigeria remains fresh in our hearts as we try to recover from the shock and devastation of the unprecedented weather events. Hence, the essence of impact-based forecasting and early warnings of weather hazards.
7. May I bring to your attention that the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has been in the forefront of providing early warning services. Various weather and climate information generated by NiMet are available for clients and stakeholders across the socio-economic sectors of the country. Some of this information are contained in the following products of the Agency:
• Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP)
• In Season SCP Updates
• State Downscaled SCP
• Translated SCP in Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba languages
• Decadal Agricultural Meteorology Bulletin published every 10 days
• Farmers Guide.
• Crop-Weather- Calendar (CWC).
• Annual State of the Climate in Nigeria
• Drought & Flood Monitoring Bulletin.
• Climate and Health Bulletin
• High-Impact Weather Forecast
• Heavy Rainfall Forecast
• Marine Meteorology Bulletin including Inshore and Offshore forecasts
• Daily Weather Forecast,
• Tailored/On demand User focused products amongst others.
7. The Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP) is the flagship product of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet). The SCP is a scientific document that relies on long-term database of meteorological data, soil information, crop information and skills-sets of NiMet team of experts. It contains information of the:
• Onset and Cessation dates of the cropping season,
• Length of growing period,
• Rainfall amount and the
• Temperature forecasts for the hot season (January to April)
• Dry spell and Little Dry Season and
• Socio Economic Implications of the predictions
8. Over the years, we have continued to improve on the content and delivery of the SCP. This has been a journey in which we have relied on partnerships supported by you, our esteem stakeholders present here today. The objective of these partnerships is to engage with you on your roles in co-production of the SCP for effective understanding and efficient utilisation of the products. This is a practice that has been promoted by NiMet and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Therefore, for the year 2022, the Agency expects further improvement in the content of the SCP through your presence here today, drawing from your wealth of quality experiences to deliver a product that is of high quality, user-oriented, impact-based and reliable across the various socio-economic sectors.
9. As is our practice, NiMet goes further to improve these predictions by continuous monitoring and regular in-season updates. We also carry out the translation of the document into the three major Nigerian Languages for easy communication and understanding by numerous stakeholders at the last mile. We have not relented in our downscaling efforts in which the SCP information are cascaded to State, Local Government and District levels. We also offer sector-specific downscaling of the SCP information to any location within the country.
10. To ensure the SCP, SCP Updates, the SCP Downscaled versions and several other products and services from the Agency reach the required users and achieve desired impacts, NiMet relies on collaborators. With collaborations, we have been able to reach out to multiple clients over the years with attendant testimonies and positive feedbacks. Even at the peak of the pandemic, using technologies and through partners, NiMet continued to reach out to as many user-communities as possible.
11. Before I close this address, may I recognise the support of various partners who have worked with us in downscaling the 2021 Seasonal Climate Predictions to Nigerians. Weather and Climate Predictions are perishable, therefore, the earlier the information goes out, the more beneficial the impacts. Thanks to the various State governments we have worked with, the MDAs, HEDA who on the last day of 2021 was still working with us, FGN-IFAD CASP, VCDP & LIFE-ND projects, BATNF, NAERLS-AGRA project, USAID MARKET, IAR, IITA, CDA (to mention a few).
12.The Nigerian Meteorological Agency remains open to more of these partnerships and look for forward to improved working relationship with all our stakeholders in 2022 and beyond.
13. I wish all participants a fruitful workshop, as we work together to create quality SCP that is informative and actionable for climate resilient Nigeria.
14. Thank you for your rapt attention.
*Matazu is DG/CEO of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet)
