2021: Borno SEMA holds End of Year Appraisal Event

The Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) had on Friday held its maiden end-of-year work appraisal for 2021.

The appraisal event was a first of its kind ever held by any MDA in Borno state.

Yabawa Kolo, the first female to head the agency as Director-General convened the appraisal meeting where she led other directors and management team of SEMA in briefing journalists at a meeting attended by several humanitarian stakeholders including a representation from the UN system.

Mrs. Kolo, a veteran journalists-turned administrator, said SEMA had achieved more than 80 percent performance in implementing Its goals for 2021 by its budgetary provision.

She said most of the achievements would not have been possible without the support and guidance of the state governor, “the indisputable professor Babagana Zulum.

We in SEMA, both the management and ad-hoc staff are expressing our appreciation for the love and concerns that the Governor has for the internally displaced persons in Borno state.

“Similar appreciation”, she said go to the office of the deputy governor, Chief of Staff, SSG, Head of the service, and chairman house of Assembly committee on SEMA, for the support.

While thanking other MDAs and the media, Mrs. Kolo also acknowledged the invaluable support from the UN system and other INGOs for their life-saving interventions for the people of Borno state. She also thanked the traditional and religious institutions for their constant advice and prayers.

Mrs. Kolo said sister organizations like NEMA, NEDC have also made the work of SEMA  very easy through their numerous supply of palliatives to IDPs.

The DG noted that for 2021, SEMA had been able to carry out several emergency and relief care service in all the local government areas of Borno state that is challenged by either insecurity or crisis-related emergencies.

Mrs. Kolo recalled that SEMA came into existence in Borno state at the peak of the Boko Haram crisis giving it a place “as a child of necessity” in 2015 to address, frontally, the issues of displacement and attendant humanitarian crisis.

Listing the 2021 critical achievements of SEMA under Camp management and Coordination, including the control and management of COVID-19 and its delta and Omicron variants in the IDP camps through constant campaigns and sensitization programs, well-trained officials.

She said major achievements of SEMA were recorded during the several fire disasters that occurred in many camps within and outside Maiduguri.

“With the indispensable help of the fire service, the Red Cross, and other voluntary organizations we have been able to manage fire outbreak situations in most of the affected camp so much that minimal or zero casualties were recorded,” she said.

Yabawa Kolo also mentioned that a total of 115,000 households of IDPs have been returned to their ancestral communities following the willingness of over 60 percent of them to return home.

She said in considering the return program, the government had some checklists which comprised three layers of development for the returned communities, which consist a high level of technical support headed by the deputy governor, the technical level headed by a commissioner of RRR, SEMA, UNOCHA, Sustainable Development, and UNHCR will serve as secretariat.

She said Borno state has a working document that ensures the IDPs are returned with dignity safely and voluntarily.

Still, under the critical achievement of SEMA, the agency said food relief distribution has one of its major accomplishments for the year 2021.

She said one of the major challenges of SEMA was accessing deep reach locations which in most times could only be possible by military escorts.

The Special Adviser to Governor Zulum on IDP matters, Alhaji Gadau Ali, commended the SEMA DG for pioneering the steps towards greater transparency and accountability in the public sector by holding the first-of-its-kind end of year service appraisal.

“We are proud of you, your hard work and humility even though it is a collective effort that you lead here in SEMA,” he said as he insisted that Yabawa Kolo also deserved all the compensation.

The high point of the appraisal event was the detailed departmental presentation of works done by all the departmental heads.

More details to follow.