In this interview with Paul Dada, the General Manager of Lagos State Emergency Management Authority (LASEMA), Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, speaks on the activities of his agency and the ordeal his men faced trying to save the lives of victims of the recent Dana Air crash in Lagos.
What is the scope of the activities of LASEMA?
The scope of the activities of Lagos State Emergency Management covers key areas such as co-ordinating disaster management in Lagos State. When we talk about disaster management, we mean planning for emergency, preparing for emergency and providing emergency response to disaster. Then, we come to the recovery aspect and the rehabilitating aspect.
What is the progress you have made so far in the last two years in LASEMA?
Looking at it holistically, we were able to, one way or the other, plan properly and conduct risk mapping for the state. We were able to do vulnerability analysis for the state. We came up with emergency response number for the state.
The achievement of the agency is that today, we have emergency numbers which are 707 or 112. Again, we realised that dissemination of information is very germane in managing emergencies. We have already identified all our stakeholders that are important in managing emergency in the state.
And we are all working together. We are all conducting stimulation exercises together. And all our stakeholders, especially the primary stakeholders, are on top of their job.
We have the database, Memorandum of Understanding with our secondary stakeholders like Julius Berger, and NEMA, and others. Whenever we need them and we call, they will definitely answer us. Today, we have in the state, Local Emergency Management Committees, School Emergency Response Team in our major schools, and Hospital Emergency Management Committee.
We also have Market Emergency Management Committee. The key point here is that we want all of us to work together. We want everybody in the state to understand that safety of life and property is paramount to the administration of His Excellency, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola.
People have been criticising the agency. Like the Dana Air crash, for example, they say the emergency response was slow and that lives would have been saved if the emergency agencies responded promptly. So, what is your take on this?
I totally disagree with that school of thought. I am a product of disaster management. I have attended both locally and internationally disaster management courses, within and outside the state. And if we look at it critically, when the incidence occurred, it took me 10 minutes to activate our emergency network. I was there 10 minutes after that incident occurred.
Eighty per cent of the people saying this were not there. They were imagining. They were looking at it with the mindset of how Lagos was before. When I got there, I immediately activated the emergency network of the state, and all our stakeholders drove in immediately. The response itself was co-ordinated by His Excellency. About 80 per cent of our energy was spent controlling the crowd.
Look at this theory, that if you put two stones together and you hit them together, they will sparkle, and there will be fire. This plane hit a two-storey building, and due to collision that ensued, there would be a sparkle and it would bring out flames. We had aviation petroleum there, which is highly inflammable.
The key point here is that if you look at the location of that area, the population and the accessibility to the area, you will know it is not easy. For some of the people there, their intention was to loot, some were looking for handsets to take from their victims.
They started throwing stones at us, until we called in the military. And this should not be. We had to call the military to control the crowd, and that was when we were able to work. We made sure that we contained the fire and it did not spread.
So, I give our fire service kudos. I give our first responders kudos too, and I thank Governor Babatunde Fashola, for co-ordinating the emergency response.
In other words, if the crowd had not been unruly, lives might have been saved?
It would have been a fifty-fifty situation. You can’t say no, you can’t say yes. We dissipated our energy more on crowd control, than rescue. Eighty per cent of our energy was dissipated on crowd control. They threw stones at the policemen, and the policemen were so annoyed that they almost used teargas on them.
We had to caution them, or else, there would have been another problem. Our people are unruly. Our people need to change their attitude of stealing, and from trying to benefit from disasters. All hands must be on deck in the attempt to rescue disaster victims.
Apart from what you have said, what are the other challenges facing disaster management in Lagos?
That is what we are battling with now. It’s the only problem that we have. We just need to change the thinking of our people and give them proper orientation.
How do you do that?
That is where the press comes in. You can do that by sensitising them, by telling them that there is nothing to benefit in steal other people’s phones, wristwatches, and other items of victims that disaster.
Why should they loot? Why should they disseminate misinformation? You could see some of them taking unnecessary pictures, and sending them everywhere.
Lagos of yesteryear and today, what are the concrete differences in the area of emergency responses?
The concrete difference is in the area of dissemination of information. Look at the bomb blast that happened years ago at the Army Cantonment at Ikeja.
The reason why we lost a lot of lives was because information was not properly disseminated; from the government to the public, and also from the public to the government. But, we now have call centres, and through these call centres, we are able to manage information.
Talking about the emergency numbers, Governor Fashola was complaining about pseudo calls. How do you cope with such callers?
We have no choice than to attend to all those calls, because if we do not attend to them, some of these calls might be real. But we are appealing to our people as they are wasting tax payers’ money. We use tax payers’ money to mobilise our people and these people will have to go to the scene of incidents.
In cases of collapsed buildings, how do you co-ordinate with other agencies and stakeholders?
They are our stakeholders, we work? well together.
Tell us some of the equipment you have on ground?
We have urban? search and rescue equipment, heavy-duty equipment, and so on.
Are you also involved in resettlement of victims?
Definitely, yes.
Don’t you think that other states, and even the Federal Government, should learn from Lagos State in the area of disaster management?
They need to learn that they must have emergency numbers. They need to build the capacity of the stakeholders and personnel. And they need to equip their stakeholders again and again.
They need to put a policy in place. This policy will help them. And they need to fund disaster management properly.
After the recent oil tanker fire in Rivers State, a rescue officer lamented that there should be a disaster management in every local government area, do you agree to that?
Yes, every local government area should have one, because the greatest effect of disaster is on the local government area. So, we need to build our disaster management from the local government area.
What is the level of training given to the emergency officers?
We give them Basic Life Support Training, Advance Life Support Training, and Urban and Life Rescue Training.
How many rescue officers do you have now?
We have 287 rescue officers, whom we can call upon whenever the need arises.