NiMet to establish meteorological stations in Nigerian varsities

The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) is to establish meteorological infrastructure in 34 universities across the country in the first phase.

The move is to increase the network of meteorological stations and boost its data collection, NiMet said in a statement.

The statement said the Director-General/CEO of NiMet, Prof. Sani Abubakar Mashi, disclosed this when he visited the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, recently in Abuja.

Prof. Mashi said that NiMet has embarked on an aggressive programme to massively expand the network of meteorological stations in the country to about 1000 by December 2017. He disclosed that one of the strategies NiMet will employ to achieve this is to partner with Nigerian universities.

Speaking further, Prof. Mashi revealed that NiMet carried out an independent assessment of the universities and looked at the existing meteorological stations the universities maintained. He noted that one of the things that are missing is the linkage between the universities and the agency.

In his response, the Executive Secretary of NUC, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, congratulated the DirectorGeneral and assured him that the commission will fully support this initiative and talk to the Vice Chancellors about it.