NiMet Seeks Legal Framework to Prosecute Meteorological Offenders

Nigerian Metereological Agency (NiMet), has appealed to the federal government to as a matter of necessity put in place, a legal framework to help prosecute meteorological services offenders.

The agency also hinted that it is set to launch mobile meteorological frequency in the country. Disclosing this recently, Director General, NiMet, Prof. Sani Abubakar Madhu noted that a quick review was needed to solve what he termed, sundry and lacuna issues mitigating against the powers of the agency. The DG stressed that, as the only agency backed by law to offer metereological services in the country, there was need for it to be backed by legal framework to help prosecute metereological information offenders in the country.

He stated this while declaring open, a sensitisation workshop organised for State Metereological Inspectors (SMIs) and Chief Metereological Technologist (CMTs) at its Headquarters in Abuja. According to him, “As a leading agency providing leadership role, not only to Nigeria, but Africa, NiMet, as it stands, can only bark and not bite.” If the law says, the agency was the only one saddled with the responsibility of offering meteorological services in the country, then; the law must arm it. “Like I said, we extend weather services to our West African sister’s nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia and also by extension, the Gambia. So, that being the case, it means that for you to continue to offer these services, you need to strive towards maintaining excellence in what you do.”

He added: “Even if one has a metereological station, whatever service generated can only be consumed by the individual; the laws says you cannot release the metereological information to anybody, if you do that, you are violating our laws. But, we can’t go and imposed any sanctions on anybody violating that because the laws are not covered. So, if our laws says, if you violate and release the data, you go to jail for 10 years or you pay N1million naira these are the kind of things that we want. “So that once we see anybody with metereological information, and then you say you obtained it from so, so location which is not NiMet, it, means we can just institute a proceedings against that person.

“But, when your laws are not covered, by the time you go to the court, the first thing the Judge will say is, what aspects of the law says, he or she should be charged and there is nothing we can do. So, there are lots of sundry issues that are there and a lot of number of lacuna there in the law. As it now, the law says, those in Aviation sector should give us certain amount of money before services is rendered to them, the amount of money that they are supposed to give have already been identified by the law. “But, what of those outside the aviation sector, the law is silent. So, if you now go to Agric and say, for these services we are offering, you are supposed to give us N1 million per month or per annum for instance, the first thing those in Agric will ask is, what aspects of the law says you should collect this One Million.

So, these are some of the challenges that we are saying that are associated with the law. By the time we get the law review, we are hoping that our capacity now to enforce the law we are supposing to be enforcing will be much greater.” He added that, weather observation over time has gone quite sophisticated and with the deployment of in satellite technology for instance, the opportunities now in the use of satellite systems in weather predictions are now very high.

The DG stated further that the agency will soon launch its Mobil Metereological ap- plication (Mobile Met App).

“In fact, our 2017 budget estimate, we prepared it there, anticipating that we will start generating revenue from these services. It is not going to be difficult. We have already approached Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). “They have already allocated a frequency for our use. What we intend to do is to partner our service provider. This will be relatively easy to enter these agreements since users already have frequency from its various services provider. The good thing is that, the law has covered us, the law has empowered us to provide these services to Nigerians, which means, we are only doing things in furtherance of our mandate.”